« Previous Entries

The Archives

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?
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.
Grimm, New
New Books
17.10.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Here is a selection of newly arrived fiction. Completely randomly a theme emerged in the tower of new books, which makes for some serious reading.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs (352 pages) – this includes very cool (peculiar) Victorian-style portrait photographs (of the peculiar children). Jacob is sent to an island off the coast of Wales (go Wales!), on which there lie the ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (an orphanage). As you would, Jacob explores the ruins, learning about the children, discovering that by “peculiar” people might have meant “dangerous”: there was a reason why Miss Peregrine’s Home is on an island. (Wrestle this one out of the hands of a librarian today!)

First sentence: I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen.

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece, Annabel Pitcher (226 pages) – The title is a reference to Jamie’s sister’s ashes. Five years on from her death, the family is still struggling to come to terms. Jamie’s father drinks, and his mother has left, and Jamie is trying to make sense of the tragedy.

First sentence: My sister Rose lives on the mantelpiece.

Hades, Alexandra Adornetto (422 pages) – the sequel to Halo. Bethany is tricked, and finds herself in Hades (the underworld), Jake is back in town, and is going after Xavier, to get at Bethany. So to spare Xavier’s life, must Bethany make the ultimate sacrifice?

First sentence: When the final bell sounded at Bryce Hamilton, Xavier and I gathered our things and headed out onto the south lawn.

She Loves You, She Loves You Not, Julie Anne Peters (278 pages) – Alyssa is disowned by her father, so she must move away from her girlfriend Sarah, to live with her mother who she doesn’t know in a new town, starting over again (and trying not to repeat the mistakes of the past).

First sentence: The night Sarah and Ben showed up out of the blue.

Sorta Like a Rock Star, Matthew Quick (355 pages) – Amber, her mother, and her dog, live in the back of the school bus her mother drives (one of those big yellow buses). Even so, Amber is an optimist, visiting people in a nursing home, and teaching English to Korean women, but then something terrible happens that tips Amber over the edge into depression.

First sentence: Lying down, shivering on the last seat of school bus 161, pinned by his teensy doggie gaze, which is completely 100% cute – I’m such a girl, I know – I say, “You won’t believe the bull I had to endure today.”

The Girl is Murder, Kathryn Miller Haines (342 pages) – set in New York in 1942. Iris’ father owns a detective agency, so naturally she is dead keen to help him on some of his cases. When he refuses to let her – and he’s working on a case involving a boy at her school – she decides to do some secret detective work of her own.

First sentence: Pop’s leg was across the room when I came downstairs. (And the next sentence: I didn’t ask him how it got there.)

Putting Makeup on Dead People, Jen Violi (326 pages) – Donna’s father has been dead for four years and she’s never really got over it. Then one day, she discovers a calling to become a mortician. A story of “how one girl learns to grieve and say good-bye, turn loss into a gift, and let herself be exceptional” (cover).

First sentence: I’m mixing a can of tomato soup with a can of two percent milk for dinner that no one will eat.

A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie, Matt Blackstone (248 pages) – Rene is an obsessive-compulsive superhero in the making, convinced he is responsible for bad things that happen by doing things in the wrong order, or moving at the wrong time. He has one friend, Gio, who is determined to teach him how to “play it cool” – one imagines Gio has his work cut out for him.

First sentence: Legs are my favorite part.

Between, Jessica Warman (454 pages) – “By weaving through her memories and watching the family and friends she left behind, eighteen-year-old Liz Valchar solves the mystery of how her life ended in the Long Island Sound.” (catalogue)

First sentence: It’s a little after two a.m.
Music, New, Synthesiser Patel
Some New Music That We Have
05.10.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Cults – Cults
Indie blogosphere
swoons. “Album of the summah!”
- Skinny-jeaned critics.

All Things Bright And Beautiful – Owl City
Starting in parent’s
basement, it stands to reason
that Mum gets guest slot.

Junk Of The Heart – The Kooks
Breezy guitar pop,
hummable choruses and
mostly about girls.

Hell The Sequel – Bad Meets Evil
Which one is which? Royce
is the “Bad”, Eminem is
the “Evil”. Oh, thanks.
Music, New, Synthesiser Patel
New YA CDs
19.09.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Sorry For Party Rocking - LMFAO. After getting a few tracks into this I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re not sorry for party rocking at all. If they were really sorry they’d do something else once in a while, either that or they’re continually wracked with guilt. Fun fact: members RedFoo and SkyBlu are the son and grandson of Motown label founder Berry Gordy.

In Waves – Trivium. The American metallers took a welcome and fresh approach with this, their fifth album, focussing on “writing for the specifically for the songs. not to show how well [they] could play”. which results in a less complex, more evenly structured set of songs. Not that this means a scaling back on “epic”, far from it.

Here I Am - Kelly Rowland. Fresh off her chart-topping singles with David Guetta, Kelly Rowland has recaptured the attitude and fire that made Destinys Child so compelling back in the day. Here I Am flits easily between pop, R&B and hip-hop and features appearances from Lil Wayne and Big Sean (when is a rapper going to use “Medium” or “Regular” as a prefix?).

Dirty Work – All Time Low. This is All Time Low’s major label debut and their first to make it onto our library shelves. Hopefully those two (equally important) milestones give them some much needed self-confidence. Seriously, All Time Low, there have been plenty of lower points throughout history than you and your music. Oh, unless it’s sarcastic. Carry on then.
Competition, Music, New, Synthesiser Patel
Win A Cut Off Your Hands Bag!
31.08.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Auckland natives, Cut Off Your Hands, released their second full-length album, Hollow, recently. It’s really good. A more fully realised version of the new wave/post punk sound they’ve been producing since 2006. But why listen to me when you can preview some of the new tracks below? They do a much better job of describing the sound, since they are the sound.

If you read the title of this post and then expected a competition to win a bag, fear not, I didn’t mislead you! Simply be the first to comment on this post (and also have a valid Wellingon Libraries YA card) to win a swell Cut Off Your Hands tote bag. It’s official. You could carry library books and the other Cut Off Your Hands CDs the library has (You & I, Blue On Blue and Cut Off Your Hands) home in it. Do it!
Music, New, Synthesiser Patel
Music!
25.08.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Ok, it turns out that the entire time I was doing haiku reviews I was actually writing senryu. You see, haikus are about nature and are serious, while senryus are about human nature and are more humorous. How about that? Excuse the lack of poetry in this post, I need to come to grips with this revelation.

B In The Mix: The Remixes - Britney Spears. Are your favourite songs on Britney Spears albums always the dance numbers? Do you always skip past the ballads while saying, “Pffft, this lacks a certain energy and I just can’t feel it, yo.”? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re in luck. All of these songs are the dance numbers, only they are even more dancetastic thanks to Justice, Jason Nevins and various other DJs.

Give ‘Til It’s Gone - Ben Harper. The prolific singer/songwriter has enjoyed such a long career that some of his albums are no longer eligible for a YA card! Sorry, Pleasure And Pain, that Justin Bieber CD is going to cost you $1 now. Ex-Beatle drummer and voice of Thomas The Tank Engine, Ringo Starr guests on this latest effort.

4 - Beyonce. Even though her last album I Am… Sasha Fierce broke the record for most Grammys won by a female artist in one night, I’d like to put it out there that this is even better. Beyonce always has great singles, but on 4 every track is strong, making it one of those rare pop albums you prefer to listen to start to finish, rather than simply cherry picking favourites. #sashafiercewho? #team4bb!

Rome - Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi. Danger Mouse is not a man who is afraid to take some left turns on the way to crafting a pop album. From inventing the mash-up genre by making unlikely bedfellows of The Beatles and Jay-Z, to spending the early years of his career in a mouse costume, it shouldn’t really surprise that this project is a soundtrack to a spaghetti western film that doesn’t exisit. Jack White and Norah Jones “guest star” on a couple of tracks.

More new CDs coming soon…
Music, New, Synthesiser Patel
Music/Poems
26.07.11 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Are haikus getting old? Is there another form of poetry you would like to see music reviews in? Comment away.

Live At The Aragon – Mastodon
Crack The Skye in its
entirety, plus other
concert favourites

Fomo – Liam Finn
Displaying usual
consistent quality with
added “spaciness”

Ukulele Songs – Eddie Vedder
Pearl Jam front man jumps
on bandwagon. What have you
wrought, uke orchestra?!?

The Dark Side Of The Moon – The Flaming Lips & Stardeath And White Dwarfs
Pink Floyd opus by
way of Wayne Coyne’s musical
circus plus Peaches

Smoking In Heaven – Kitty, Daisy & Lewis
As a child of the
nineties, musical siblings
recall Hanson bros

Habits – Neon Trees
American alt-
rock band from Provo, Utah.
Good ole wiki, eh?
Music, New, Vic Ferrari
Rock Fight!
20.07.11 | Permalink | 4 Comments

Two noteworthy music videos were released yesterday and they will battle it out on your computer screens in our new feature, Rock Fight! How exactly do pieces of film set to music battle you ask? By being watched sequentially and then voted on in the comments. Easy.

Our first combatants in the ring are The Beastie Boys featuring Santigold with Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win off their album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two.

Good stuff, Beasties! (FYI; Santigold’s album is here)

Taking them on in this titanic struggle is Rebecca Black with her new song, My Moment. She doesn’t have an album yet because she is such a fresh new artist, but I understand an ep is in the works, look for it coming to the library soon!

Nice one, Rebecca!

Now that you’ve sized up both contenders, vote for your favourite in the comments. Who will win the Rock Fight!?!
Jack, New, Non-fiction
New Non-Fiction
18.06.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Man, there’s still so much non-fiction coming in. Pretty sweet if you enjoy facts, am I right? Rather than describe them all – the titles give away enough clues as far as the content goes – here they are in list form.

Waves: great stories from the surf - Tim Baker
The Twilight saga: the official illustrated guide
101 things I learned in fashion school - Alfredo Cabrera and Matthew Frederick
Cat on a hot tin roof - Tennesse Williams
Let’s get this staright: the ultimate handbook for youth with LGBTQ parents - Tina Fakhrid-Deen
Indie craft - Jo Waterhouse
Tees: the art of the t-shirt - Maki
The complete book of drawing manga - Peter Gray
Weirdo noir: gothic and dark lowbrow art - Matt Dukes Jordan
Illustration now - Gregoire Noyelle and Katy Lee
Rock gods: 40 years of rock photography - Robert M. Knight
Glee: the official annual 2011
DC Comics: year by year visual chronicle

There you go. Lots of interesting topics covered. Reserve them if you would like.