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Teen Blog

Reading, Wellington, and whatever else – teenblog@wcl.govt.nz

Month: May 2012

Starters by Lissa Price

Set after a war where most adults have been killed by a biologogical weapon, the people remaining are mostly either children or teenagers (Starters) or the elderly (Enders). The Starters are unable to work and if an adult doesn’t claim them they can’t get accommodation, and can be arrested if they are caught. Enders are at the other end of the scale. They have health care to keep them alive until well into their hundreds, near limitless wealth and live in huge mansions.

Callie lives in an abandoned building with her friend Michael and her younger brother Tyler. Tyler is only seven, and unwell but they have no access to any kind of health care and no way of getting help. However, Callie has heard of one way she might be able to earn enough to get them a house and some safety. Prime Destinations run a body bank where Enders can rent the bodies of Starters, be young again, play sports, all that sort of thing. Callie should be asleep while the Ender is having fun being her, but the chip used to control her is defective and she wakes up to find out that the Ender who hired her wasn’t just planning on playing tennis or going dancing – she wants to use Callie’s body to kill someone.

 

Starters is a really good read, highly recommended if you are looking for more dystopia, and especially if you liked Scott Westerfelds Uglies trilogy.

Lissa Price’s blog is here.

MCA: A memoriam in video

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.

New Zealand Music We Like: Monty again!

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

New Zealand Music we like: Raewyn

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.

New Zealand Music I Like: The Wild

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!

New Zealand Music We Like: Monty

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

New Zealand Music We Like: Jack

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)