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Tag: Music Page 2 of 7

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

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: 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.

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.

New Books

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.

Some New Music That We Have

cults

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

owl city all things

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

kooks

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

bad meets evil

Hell The Sequel – Bad Meets Evil
Which one is which? Royce
is the “Bad”, Eminem is
the “Evil”
. Oh, thanks.

New YA CDs

lmfaoSorry 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.

triviumIn 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.

kelly rowlandHere 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?).

all time lowDirty 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.

Win A Cut Off Your Hands Bag!

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!

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 mixB 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.

ben harperGive ‘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.

beyonce4 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!

danger mouseRome – 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/Poems

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

mastodon live

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

liam finn

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

eddie vedder

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

flaming lips stardeath etc

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

kitty daisy and lewis

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

neon trees

Habits – Neon Trees
American alt-
rock band from Provo, Utah.
Good ole wiki, eh?

Rock Fight!

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!?!

New Non-Fiction

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.

Synthesiser Patel’s Synthesiser Of The Week

This week I was going to write a post about the regular theremin, but after finding the video below, that post can wait.

This man, Ken Moore, has made a homemade theremin out of a wiimote, LED gloves and a Roland synthesiser. It’s that kind of forward thinking that earns you the title of “Synthesiser of the week”. He has a blog here with more theremin related goodness.

If you’ve now been inspired and you’d now like to build your own theremin, you can! This mini theremin from Make magazine is very reasonably priced and cute.

New Non-Fiction, Art And Fashion

As promised, here is more of the new non-fiction. Today music, art and fashion.

liveLive: Gigs that rocked New Zealand by Bruce Jarvis & Josh Easby. A nice visual history of some of the landmark concerts staged in New Zealand with along with interesting anecdotes. If you look very closely at the crowd photos you may just spot your parents, you never know.

japanese animationJapanese animation: From painted scrolls to Pokemon by Brigitte Koyama-Rickard. A wonderfully detailed history of Japanese animation. Includes plenty of interviews with famous animators discussing their craft. Interesting to see the development of different trends in Manga and Anime over the years.

banksyBanksy: Wall and Piece. If you are unfamiliar with the work of provocative graffiti artist, Banksy, this is well worth an issue. Page after page of his always humorous and frequently audacious work covering every corner of the globe. Here’s a Banksy Simpsons intro.

outsidersOutsiders: Art by people compiled by Steve Lazarides. This a a companion piece to Wall and Piece, with outsider art compiled by Banksy’s manager. Taking the same sort of intelligent, witty and subversive approach, none of these artists have ever been formally trained, yet produce some amazing work.

car cultureJuxtapoz: Car Culture. A collection of car and car related illustrations and photgraphs from cutting edge design magazine, Juxtapoz. Filled with the sorts of things you’d see on the walls in American diners and the things you’d see on the black t-shirts inside those same diners. Worth a look for art fans and car enthusiasts alike.

sartorialistThe Sartorialist by Scott Schuman. It’s a sign of blog success when your blog gets a book deal*, The Sartorialist has done just that. If you’ve never been to the site (and for some reason have chosen not to click on the link in the previous sentence) it’s basically a series of very well-dressed people photgraphed in their natural environments. Bookmark it, then reserve this book.

fashion boxFashion Box: The immortal icons of style by Antonio Mancinelli. If Friday is your favourite day because you enjoy look forward all week to Le Chic Librarian’s posts, perhaps this can help bridge the gap inbetween? Includes sections like “The little black dress”, “The trench coat”, “Jeans” and “The mini skirt” all worn by good looking famous people.

There are still more books yet to blog. Coming tomorrow; Cars, Surfing and a whole lot of other things that have just arrived since I took my lunch break.

*One day there will be a Teen Blog book. We hope.

The Haiku Machine

 

 

 travis barker

Give the drummer some – Travis Barker
Claims made of “no one
genre” are false. I know nu-
metal all too well.

weezer

Hurley – Weezer
Michael Cera guests,
to play the hurdy gurdy.
– Source, good ‘ole wiki.

body talk 1

Body Talk pt. 1 – Robyn
Now is as good a
time as any to link to
Librarians choice

body talk 2

Body Talk pt. 2 – Robyn
Of course we also
recommend this, the second
installment highly.

jesus and mary chain

Upside Down: The Best Of – The Jesus & Mary Chain
Scarlett Johansson’s
first backing band’s previous
career chronicled.

attack and release

Attack & Release – The Black Keys
Ably assisted
by a man dressed as a mouse
who provides keyboards.

glasvegas

Euphoric Heartbreak – Glasvegas
Contradictory
band names deserve album names
to suit I suppose.

another clubbers guide

Clubbers Guide 2011 – Ministry Of Sound
Back cover uses
type that causes Bs to look
exactly like Ds

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