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Category: music and other nice noises Page 2 of 10

Black City Lights

It’s still New Zealand Music Month! There are so many awesome New Zealand acts around right now, but have you heard of Black City Lights?

They’re a Wellington duo consisting of Calum Robb and Julia Catherine Parr, a producer and vocalist respectively, and they are certainly on the way to making it big. Just over a year ago they released their debut EP called Parallels (which you can listen to here) and since then they’ve gone from strength to strength. They’ve opened for Grimes, Baths and Van She, and done a whole bunch of headlining shows too. They received two highly sought-after grants which allowed them to make this stunning video for their song Parallels:

Their song Rivers is a personal favourite, so check that one out too! Black City lights are just about to begin releasing their new material (a new single is being released on Thursday) leading up to their debut album release in August. AND they’ll be heading to the States shortly touring the East and West coasts for three months! Phew!

If you get a chance, check them out playing live as they are incredible! I’ve seen them at least three times and they impress me more every time.

Enjoy!

R n R

Winging Your Way Through The Weekend, 18-19 May

Greetings!

Here’s our weekly run down of what’s on about this splendid city during the weekend.

The mind blowing moving image exhibition “Moving On Asia” has only a fortnight left at Wellington’s City Gallery.

Our freshest up and coming young comedians perform at Bats theatre in “Class Comedians“.

After some free film? The New Zealand Film Archive is currently hosting Samin Son TV – a self titled exhibition of Son’s time in the Korean Army. It sounds pretty interesting and is… the big ol’ price of NOTHING.

The Documentary Edge Film Festival continues.

In music news it’s still New Zealand Music Month. Lorde released the music video for Royals (below) this week – she’s going to be a superstar. The Naked And Famous snuck this single, ‘A Source Of Light’, into the webosphere off of their upcoming remixes and b-sides follow up to Passive Me, Aggressive You.

Big international drops for the weekend playlist include The National’s ‘Trouble Will Find Me’ (itunes streaming), Daft Punk’s  ‘Random Access Memories’ (itunes streaming) and Vampire Weekend’s  ‘Modern Vampires Of The City’.

Canada’s most famous (and only) astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield returned to earth this week but not before gifting planet earth another of his amazing videos. Music + science = awesome!

Happy weekending!

Winging Your Way Through The Weekend, 11-12 May

Brr! What a week. Floods, a (very tiny) earthquake and although the great day star showered us in splendour the mercury hasn’t climbed very high. It’s probably safer indoors with weekend warmers. We’re going for a blog in two halves today Wellington’s what’s on closely followed by a continuation of last weeks NZ music scrape over.

The New Zealand International Comedy Festival is in its final weeks and the hilarious “The Boy With Tape On His Face” performs in Downstage Theatre Friday night. 
 
Our friendly neighbours Lower Hutt have some sweet badge making going down for Youth Week at The Dowse Gallery if you’d like to pimp your bag, hat or jacket for free. Here’s a full run down of Youth Week events in the region.
 
Want to get inside a navy ship and see what goes down? HMNZS Wellington will be open up for your viewing pleasure on Queens Wharf this Saturday. Don’t forget the sea legs.

There’s also a fascinating film festival in town this weekend. Documentary Edge Festival 2013 has all sorts of interesting offerings including Only The Young a study in youth and coming of age. 
This week we’ll take a look at the “naughties” (2000-2009) for the weekend playlist. At times you could’ve been forgiven for thinking that music had taken a turn for the worst this decade. International offerings like Axel F’s totem to annoyance Crazy Frog weasled themselves to number one. Reality superstar competitions started to change the face of how musicians are made (you web-savvy folk may’ve already encountered Dave Grohl’s thoughts about these competitions via meme). Here in New Zealand we had a go. Yes we did. New Zealand Idol delivered us (briefly) Ben Lummis and Michael Murphy, we also got Stan ‘yous’ Walker through Aussie Idol. The decade had gems, don’t get me wrong. The star of the decade was a (then) young rapper from Christchurch, Scribe. He dominated 2003’s charts with his debut single Stand Up. Hip Hop/R&B were the champion genres across the airwaves with acts like Savage (with Swing), Dei Hamo (We Gon’ Ride), swaggy Dane Rumble in his past life act Misfits Of Science, Nesian Mystik, P-Money (who has some new stuff too!) and Smashproof. Our other genres did well with Fur Patrol, Goodshirt, Atlas, Tiki Taane & company keeping the singles chart kiwi. Some other favourites include Stellar*, Zed, Salmonella Dub, Che Fu, The Datsuns, Fat Freddy’s Drop and Anika Moa. Many of these artists albums are still lingering in our CD collection, if any take your fancy have a dig through their discographies.
 
Here’s a kiwi music video treasure from the decade to take us out, cue Kora and their EPIC anime video for Skankenstein.

On a high note…

High note… Geddit? Music puns are such fun. Since you’ve all been reading about music after last week’s list in honour of New Zealand Music Month, this week we thought we’d let you know what’s happening!

Unfortunately for us, Auckland seems to be getting most of the action 🙁 HOWEVER, based on this list of Wellington events, at least lots of the events here are free 🙂

NZ Music Month is a promotion run by the NZ Music Commission that takes place each May, in association with other organisations including NZ On Air, RIANZ, APRA, Independent Music NZ, and the Radio Broadcasters Association. You can find out more about the organisers here. NZ Music Month is a 31 day celebration of our homegrown talent across the length and breadth of the country. So get involved! Go to a gig, buy some merchandise, or just rent some New Zealand music from the library this month! Here are our personal favourites:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0014DBZXS/ref=ase_wellingtoncit-21Flight of the Conchords because, if nothing else, we love a good laugh. And because Bret McKenzie was in the library the other day. But mostly because no one combines comedy and music quite like they do. Don’t believe us? Check out our exstensive collection in the library or check out this rather amusing charity song written for Cure Kids last year.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0017UOUGW/ref=ase_wellingtoncit-21Essentially that video plays like a who’s who of New Zealand music, including the wonderful Brooke Fraser. We love her, not only for her incredible talents as a singer and songwriter, but also for her willingness to use her fame to get behind a cause. As well as Cure Kids, there’s World Vision (which inspired the song “Albertine”) and in 2010 while on tour in the States, she raised over $54,000 for charity: water to build clean water wells in Ethiopia.

The favourite that you may not have heard of: Ivy Lies. I fell in love with these ladies after hearing “Never Enough” and it’s safe to say the rest of their album, Little Mind Games, is just as good. The girls of Ivy Lies have perfected pop-rock with high energy, aggressive drums and assertive rock guitar, making music that makes you pound your invisible drum sticks.

Not your thing? Come check out the New Zealand music selection here at the library. In case you didn’t know, the YA CDs are FREE on your YA card so really, what’s to lose?

We’ll leave you with some photos of NZ Music Months gone by…

R n R

Winging Your Way Through The Weekend, 4-5 May

Kia ora!

Welcome to the last weekend of the school holidays. First thing’s first, pump up the volume and press play.

Marvel at John Williams conducting. Now there’s suitable ambiance may the fourth be with you! Today is Star Wars day – woohoo. George Lucas’ profound trilogy unleashed a science fiction frenzy on the world just short of 40 years ago and today geeks and not-geeks unite to celebrate the great trilogy-cum-saga. Light saber warbling and “Luke I am your father”-ing is totally appropriate today (and the other 364 days).

Nearly every day or month is a celebration to somebody somewhere. Obviously today (Saturday) has Star Wars covered and tomorrow, for instance, is Children’s Day in South Korea and Japan as well as Cinco de Mayo in The States and Mexico. Cinco de Mayo isn’t the celebration of mayonnaise I will add. Now in that vein I am proud to announce that, for those who aren’t already aware, we are four days into New Zealand Music Month. Throughout the month Teen Blog will bring you all sorts of NZ music know-how. Our libraries will also transform into venues for local musicians to perform – take that shush-fingers!

For a quick scrub-up on what exactly music month is about check out the official website here. In short though it is an epic celebration of the lads and lasses that have gifted ours and the worlds airwaves with amazing music. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll scratch the surface of some of the sweetest acts from the last few decades of kiwi music for weekend playlisting. This week we’ll start with the current decade. Globe conquering has been a bit of a pattern lately with The Naked And Famous first through the gates followed closely by Avalanche City’s Love Love Love (it was originally free to download). Many more have found international success too, especially Hamilton’s favourite child Kimbra. In our local charts Dunedin lads Six60 happened as too did J Williams & Scribe and Wellington’s Brooke Fraser. Away from the top of the charts acts like The Checks, Ladi6 and Cairo Knife Fight hungout with a huge amount of great and fresh music that is just too numerous to list here. As for new stuff be sure to keep an eye on/checkout The Phoenix Foundation, Minuit, Lorde, Shapeshifter and Beastwars.

For the duration of the month The New Zealand Herald will be streaming new and old recordings including their studio Sundae Sessions daily – a concert a day, sweet!

Finally, a video. We’re going to skip viral this week and stay in kiwi theme. Borrowing some funny from 2001 here’s Goodshirt’s Sophie. Enjoy!

Synesthesia

is when one of your senses is triggered but it causes an involuntary response by one or more of your other senses. In this case, we hope you’ll be reading words but hearing music! Or something. It’s a serious disease though.

In a roundabout way, this is a welcome to New Zealand Music Month, and we’re kicking it off with novels about music, musicians and playlists! It’s a challenging thing to write about musicians or bands in a way that is engaging for readers, since the author has to somehow describe the feeling, tone, content and emotion of something which is expressed purely through sound. Here we’ve selected ten who we think have done this pretty well.

book cover courtesy of SyndeticsFat Kid Rules the World, K.L. Going

Troy Billings is seventeen, 296 pounds, friendless, utterly miserable, and about to step off a New York subway platform in front of an oncoming train. Until he meets Curt MacCrae, an emaciated, semi-homeless, high school dropout guitar genius, the stuff of which Lower East Side punk rock legends are made. Never mind that Troy’s dad thinks Curt’s a drug addict and Troy’s brother thinks Troy’s the biggest (literally) loser in Manhattan. Soon, Curt has recruited Troy as his new drummer, even though Troy can’t play the drums. Together, Curt and Troy will change the world of punk, and Troy’s own life, forever.

book cover courtesy of SyndeticsLemonade Mouth, Mark Peter Hughes

Be warned, this is not the same book as the Disney movie. As is often the case, the character’s in the book are much more complex although the gist remains. This is the story of how five outcasts in Opoquonsett High School’s freshman class found each other, found the music, and went on to change both rock and roll and high school as we know it. Wen, Stella, Charlie, Olivia, and Mo take us back to that fateful detention where a dentist’s jingle, a teacher’s coughing fit, and a beat-up ukulele gave birth to Rhode Island’s most influential band. This is a book that utilizes multiple points of view really, really well. Especially during the concert chapters, where the point of view changes between about 10 different people.

book cover courtesy of Syndetics6X: The Uncensored Confessions, Nina Malkin

Four teens suddenly rise to stardom in their band 6X, taking the world by storm and learning the truth first-hand about the real backstabbing world of show biz. The band is made up of 4 members, contradictory to what the book title suggests. There’s Kendall (The Voice), Rich (The Body), Stella (The Boss) and A/B (The Boy) and together they’re on the fast track to pop-rock superstardom. Along the way though, they’ll have to do some serious soul searching, face some hard truths and learn to survive in the glamorous, backstabbing world of pop music.

book cover courtesy of SyndeticsNick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

This high-energy romance follows two high-school seniors through a single, music-fueled night in Manhattan. Nick, the nonqueer bassist in a queercore band, is playing with The Fuck Offs, when he spots his ex-girlfriend, Tris. Once offstage, he propositions a girl he has never met, hoping to make Tris jealous: Would you mind being my girlfriend for five minutes? Norah, also heartbroken (and hoping Nick will drive her home), agrees. What begins as a spontaneous ploy turns into something surprising and real in the course of one night as Nick and Norah roam Manhattan, listen to bands, confront past hurts, and hurtle toward romance. What we loved about this one is the characters’ wild yearning for love, and music, which feels powerful and true.

book cover courtesy of SyndeticsThe Disenchantments, Nina LaCour

Colby and Bev have a long-standing pact: graduate, hit the road with Bev’s band, and then spend the year wandering around Europe. But moments after the tour kicks off, Bev makes a shocking announcement: she’s abandoning their plans – and Colby – to start college in the fall. But the show must go on and The Disenchantments weave through the Pacific Northwest, playing in small towns and dingy venues, while roadie- Colby struggles to deal with Bev’s already-growing distance and the most important question of all: what’s next?

book cover courtesy of SyndeticsNaked, Kevin Brooks

Britain in the 1970s sounds like an incredible place to be. Chaos and punk culture went hand in hand and this book is set right in the middle of it: summer of 1976. It was the summer of so many things. Heat and violence, love and hate, heaven and hell. It was the time I met William Bonney – the boy from Belfast known as Billy the Kid. William’s secrets have been kept for a long time, but now things have changed and the truth is coming out. The story begins with Curtis Ray; hip, cool, rebellious Curtis Ray. Without Curtis, there wouldn’t be a story to tell. It’s the story of a band, of life and death . . . and everything in between.

book cover courtesy of SyndeticsThis Lullaby, Sarah Dessen

Raised by a mother who has had five husbands, eighteen-year-old Remy believes in short-term, no-commitment relationships until she meets Dexter, a rock band musician. Remy goes on a whirlwind ride, avoiding, circling and finally surrendering to Cupid’s arrows. More than the summer romance of this novel, we loved the cast of idiosyncratic characters who watch from the sidelines. There’s the trio of Remy’s faithful girlfriends, all addicted to “Xtra Large Zip” Diet Cokes practical-minded Jess, weepy Lissa, and Chloe, who shares Remy’s dark sense of humor as well as Dexter’s entourage of fellow band members, as incompetent at managing money as they are at keeping their rental house clean. Potential spoiler: it’s far from the fairytale happily-ever-after ending.

book cover courtesy of SyndeticsAudrey, Wait!, Robin Benway

California high school student Audrey Cuttler dumps self-involved Evan, the lead singer of a little band called The Do-Gooders. Evan writes, “Audrey, Wait!” a break-up song that’s so good it rockets up the billboard charts. And Audrey is suddenly famous! Now rabid fans are invading her school. People (magazine) is running articles about her arm-warmers. The lead singer of the Lolitas wants her as his muse. (And the Internet is documenting her every move!) Audrey can’t hang out with her best friend or get with her new crush without being mobbed by fans and paparazzi. Take a wild ride with Audrey as she makes headlines, has outrageous amounts of fun, confronts her ex on MTV, and gets the chance to show the world who she really is.

book cover courtesy of SyndeticsFive Flavors of Dumb, Antony John

High school senior Piper, who began to lose her hearing at age six, has mixed feelings about her parents dipping into her college fund to pay for cochlear implants for her hearing-impaired baby sister. But one thing is clear: Piper has to replenish the funds. Opportunity knocks when a disorganized rock band named Dumb invites her to be their manager. However, it soon becomes apparent that the members’ egos are more substantial than their talent. Although Piper’s hearing is a characterizing detail that could have been used solely as a gimmick, her abilities are seen as assets: while lip reading allows her access to public conversation, she is not above using sign language to obscure her intentions. The parallel attention to Piper’s hearing family and the strain her parents’ decision to treat her sister with cochlear implants adds to the greater story and informs the novel’s direction and ending in a satisfying way.

book cover courtesy of SyndeticsRock Star Superstar, Blake Nelson

Music is Pete’s life. He’s happiest when he’s playing his Fender Precision bass, whether he’s jamming with his dad at 2 a.m. or covering Top 40 hits. Pete doesn’t care about playing the hottest club or getting the cutest girl. For him, it’s all about the quality of the music. Until he meets the Carlisle brothers. Pete could play circles around Nick and Billy Carlisle-the guys are amateurs. But there’s a power in their sound that’s exciting, and they need a new bass player. Pete joins their band, not quite sure what to expect. Before he knows it, he’s on a wild ride that transforms him from jazz band geek to potential rock god. Is Pete ready for superstardom? More importantly, is it even what he wants?

Hopefully that’s enough to kick of 2013 New Zealand Music Month for y’all! Stay tuned for updates and our favourite homegrown acts.

R n R

Winging Your Way Through The Weekend, 27-28/4

Kia ora!

Welcome to the weekend. What to do, what to do?

If you find yourself wandering about Newtown this weekend why not check out Wellington Festival Of Circus? If having clowning & cabaret up in your face isn’t doing it for you maybe Darren Shan could keep you in theme but through the safety of bound text?

If you’re more of a performer then a watcher have you considered entering this years Smokefree Rockquest? It’s the 25th year this right-of-passage is running and man has it fostered all sorts of household name kiwi musicians. Need some inspiration? Here’s a surface scratching list of previous contestants including Kimbra and last years winners New Vinyl. Take yourself on a journey through our CD collection.

The curtain falls on Game Masters at Te Papa this weekend. The amazing exhibition that caters to almost every level of gamer was borrowed from the incredible ACMI in Melbourne’s Federation Square and includes Pacman, Space Invaders and Sonic!

New music on the playlist shelf this week includes ex-Wellingtonian Willy Moon and half New Zealand alt-indie darlings The Veils with their fourth album.

Ever wondered what happens when you wring a soggy towel out in space? Here’s the answer:

– Physics, fascinating!

That’s what’s a going down.

Fowler out.

Winging Your Way Through The Weekend, 2

This week marks the halfway point through one of the world’s biggest music festivals. Split across two three day weekends The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Annual Festival (or just Coachella) in the southern California Desert showcases a plethora of bands from world-wining super acts to underground heroes. What’s the use in knowing that this is happening if it’s on the other side of the world you might say? This time of year heralds the festival drought for us but the Northern Hemisphere’s where the good time’s at! A whole array of fabled behemoth events spring up, taunting us from afar and while our imaginations may be tempted with envy one, at least, has decided to share itself with the rest of the world. So, if you find yourself bored in front of the interwebs this weekend or just keen to experience some big gig flavour be sure to tune into the Coachella Youtube channel so you can catch up on weekend one and take in some of the highlights (why not start with this The Lumineers set out-take>).

It’s really quite a joyous weekend on the musical front with the sixth annual Record Store Day consuming the globe on Saturday. Some of our great Wellington record stores will no doubt be getting in on the action (including Evil Genius, Slow Boat & Rough Peel). We aren’t quite a music store but we’ve got one heck of a music collection you can flick through, thousands of CD’s I tell you. One of the great things about Record Store Day is that a whole lot-a artists get on board and release some sweet merch’ or diddy’s for the day. For the full list click here, some surface-scratching favourite’s partaking include; Foals, Grizzly Bear, Iron & Wine & MGMT with this cassingle (preview only).

In brief:

To celebrate their two huge years of global success on the back of Passive Me, Aggressive You kiwi band The Naked And Famous have released their One Temporary Escape recording in San Francisco free to all.

All ages treat and Auckland Fringe Festival “Best Performance” winner Squidboy hits town at Bats in its current form on Dixon and Cuba. It’s had some sweet reviews like “impossible not to love.”

Rather get some sport going? The Hurricanes have a home game at Westpac Stadium against Perth’s Western Force – dum, dum, dum (that was a drum roll) who’s gonna win?

And of course a viral video to end the week on. Na-na-na-na batman.

That’s what’s a going down.

Fowler out.

Winging Your Way Through The Weekend

Highlights this week; term time’s almost up, we’re seven days into having brought the sun forward for winter and apparently the rain’s coming back for a visit. Enough small talk though, here’s this week’s ender-entry to give you a two day break from the school work.

If you’re an adventurous titan, and like to work alliteratively, here are some things to do on Saturday – that start with ‘S’:

Skating takes over the waterfront in two forms. The Richter City roller derby season kicks off on Saturday night at the TSB arena in a home season battle between Smash Malice and Comic Slams. For a quick scrub-up on the ins and outs of the game look no further than Y/A novel Whip It and its sister movie starring Ellen Page.

Real Groovy linkWhip It (the movie) Image Courtesy SyndeticsWhip It (the book)

Still keen on skating but not so sure about all the aggression – why not try your hands, or feet – or feet then hands, on the ice? The ice rink is in full operation on Queens wharf just a short hop from the TSB. For our older readers Blades Of Glory might be a quick introduction on how not to act on the ice but for some pointers and to figure out if you can make a career out of it why not check out some of our literature?

Okay, okay enough with the skates. I wouldn’t leap into the water at the moment on account of its chill factor but one way you could get some surfing in is by checking it this sweet free free flick by Alex Monteith at The Dowse Gallery in Lower Hutt.

And here’s a quick weekly musical digest to help shape your weekend playlist:

Pete Wentz’s Fall Out Boy graced our shores this week on the back of their latest album drop.
Kiwi band Tahuna Breaks are in town this weekend for their Shadow Lights album release tour and are currently sitting near the top of the NZ album charts.

Ever wondered how animals eat their food? Here’s this weeks viral vid’ – courtesy Mister Epic Mann;

Fowler out.

K-Pop we’ve got

We’ve gone and bought some K-Pop for our YA music collection (as promised). This is what we have so far;

Alive, BIGBANG
The Second Mini Album, 2NE1
The Boys, Girls’ Generation
Wonder Party, Wonder Girls
Mr Simple, Super Junior
Sherlock, SHINee

All are packaged in amazing cases that aren’t really designed for library shelves (or being handled, to be honest!) so currently they’re kept at the Children’s/YA desk at Central. Just ask, or reserve them! In the meantime here’s the latest teaser from SHINee.

K-Pop

Here are some songs by a few Korean bands. Korean pop is called K-pop! (Also Japanese pop is called J-pop!) It is marked by catchy songs, incredible dancing, and hyper-fashion.

Do you like it? Should the library buy some of their CDs for the teen section? Thanks for your comments below (or on our Facebook page)!

This first group is Super Junior, and the song is called Sexy, Free, and Single. It was only released a week or so ago, so is very new and fresh. Super Junior has about nine or ten members! (I can’t count higher than six.) If you like it you will probably love their older song, Mr. Simple.

Aaand the next track is by SHINee. It is called Lucifer and you know what, it has the best dancing ever. Prove me wrong! It’s a couple of years old, though, but they’ve a newer song, Sherlock, which is also comes highly recommended (by me and some other people).

Another new song is No Mercy, by B.A.P. Click to watch! They are also a (large) boyband with great hair. I don’t know if I like this song as much as the others. Thoughts?

Finally! Here’s AAA’s No Cry No More. It is J-pop, okay.

So don’t forget to comment here or on our Facebook if you have any suggestions.

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)

Grammy winning CDs

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?

YA Authors Rock Out

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?

New CDs with poetic descriptions

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.

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