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Tag: NZ Music Month

All about Music

To mark the New Zealand Music Month why don’t we read books related to music? It’s a subject that I love and the first two books in the list are my favourites.

Syndetics book coverEleanor & Park / Rainbow Rowell.
Bono met his wife in high school, Park says. So did Jerry Lee Lewis, Eleanor answers. I’m not kidding, he says. You should be, she says, we’re 16 . What about Romeo and Juliet? Shallow, confused, then dead. I love you, Park says. Wherefore art thou, Eleanor answers. I’m not kidding, he says. You should be.
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits–smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.” (Syndetics summary)

Syndetics book coverPlaylist for a broken heart / Cathy Hopkins.
“When Paige finds an old mix CD in a local charity shop, she can’t help but wonder about the boy who made it and the girl he was thinking of when he chose the songs. The tracks tell the story of a boy looking for his perfect girl, a story of being alone, being let down, misunderstood and not knowing where to turn. Following the clues of the music, Paige sets out to find the mysterious boy, going from gig to gig and band to band, hoping to track him down. But will who she finds at the end of the trail, be the boy she’s imagined?” (Syndetics summary)

Syndetics book coverHold me closer : the Tiny Cooper story / by David Levithan.
“Especially for those of us who ordinarily feel ignored, a spotlight is a circle of magic, with the strength to draw us from the darkness of our everyday lives. Watch out, ex-boyfriends, and get out of the way, homophobic coaches. Tiny Cooper has something to say–and he’s going to say it in song. Filled with honesty, humor, and “big, lively, belty” musical numbers, Hold Me Closer is the no-holds-barred (and many-bars-held) entirety of the beloved musical first introduced in Will Grayson, Will Grayson , the award-winning bestseller by John Green and David Levithan. Tiny Cooper is finally taking center stage . . . and the world will never be the same again.” (Syndetics summary)

Syndetics book coverCoda / Emma Trevayne.
“Ever since he was a young boy, music has coursed through the veins of eighteen-year-old Anthem-the Corp has certainly seen to that. By encoding music with addictive and mind-altering elements, the Corp holds control over all citizens, particularly conduits like Anthem, whose life energy feeds the main power in the Grid. Anthem finds hope and comfort in the twin siblings he cares for, even as he watches the life drain slowly and painfully from his father. Escape is found in his underground rock band, where music sounds free, clear, and unencoded deep in an abandoned basement. But when a band member dies suspiciously from a tracking overdose, Anthem knows that his time has suddenly become limited. Revolution all but sings in the air, and Anthem cannot help but answer the call with the chords of choice and freewill. But will the girl he loves help or hinder him?” (Syndetics summary)

NZMM video-fest!

We’re past the halfway mark through NZ Music Month now, so better make the most of it! Don’t forget we have Harriet and the Matches performing at Newtown library this Friday the 23rd of May, we’ll see you there at 7pm!

In the mean time, have a dance party in your living room to these fab songs and videos from NZ artists!

Here’s Lorde performing Tennis Court at the Billboard Music Awards the other day

Settle Down by Kimbra

Apple Pie Bed by Lawrence Arabia

It’s Choade My Dear by Connan Mockasin

Dominion Road by The Mutton Birds (an oldie but a goodie)

40 Years by The Phoenix Foundation (this one’s directed by Taika Waititi who directed the movie Boy)

And finally Just A Boy by Pikachunes

This post was brought to you by Gina at Newtown library’s genius (Gina-us?) suggestions! With much enthusastic nodding and encouragement from myself.

NZ music highlights

Hopefully you’re celebrating NZ Music Month with us by listening to more local artists! I thought I would highlight a few recent-ish NZ releases we have in our collection, with some help from very music-savvy fellow librarian Kim. Let us know what you agree or disagree with, and please leave us some of your favourite NZ artists in the comments!

The Love Club EP by Lorde

Dating earlier than her hit album Pure Heroine, The Love Club EP (first released for free on SoundCloud) contains the ubiquitous ‘Royals’ along with four other songs not on her full length album. ‘Bravado’, ‘Biting Down’, ‘Million Dollar Bills’ and ‘The Love Club’ are all excellent songs, and have a slightly different sound to Pure Heroine – perhaps a little cheekier? In any case, any Lorde fan needs to listen to this EP.

Brightly Painted One by Tiny Ruins

I saw Tiny Ruins a.k.a Hollie Fullbrook when she opened for Calexico last year and they were both excellent! Morphing from gentle and folky to classical-sounding with strings and looping back around again, Tiny Ruins keeps it interesting. She has been compared to Beth Gibbons from Portishead AND Nick Drake, so if that’s not a recommendation, I don’t know what is.

Goin’ Steady by Newtown Rocksteady (adult collection, costs $1)

13-piece Newtown Rocksteady’s extended EP documents their musical progression over the last four years, representing and reinventing the 60s Jamaican vibe known as rocksteady. Rocksteady mixes together reggae, dub, ska and dancehall music, all perfect for a good boogie which they provided in droves at the Newtown and Womad festivals earlier this year. If you get the chance to see them live, do! They provide amazing entertainment and you’ll be blown away by their collective talent, not to mention their 5-piece horn section.

Louis Baker by Louis Baker (adult collection, costs $1)

Wellington local Louis Baker is sometimes mellow and completely soulful. His sound has been compared to Jeff Buckley – these are some amazing comparisons being made to our local talents! He’s very talented and grew up in Coromandel Street, Newtown. His self titled EP made it to number 8 in the NZ charts, check it out for yourself!

And then we have some faves that don’t have CDs out in the library yet:

Brockaflower Saurus-Rex (and the Blueberry Biscuits)

This 9-piece band’s first album is full on but spacious, allowing everyone their own instrument space – an impressive feat with so many people and instruments demanding attention. But they make it work, and very harmoniously, too. As for genre, they’re a bit funk, a bit psychedelic and a bit “neo-soul” (who even names music genres these days?) and they’ll keep you grooving with each song full of energy. They have an album out titled “Build It” but we sadly don’t have it in the library. You can listen to it in full here on SoundCloud though!

Estère

Speaking of genre names, Estère’s probably takes the cake – “electric blue witch hop”. She is a singer/songwriter/beatmaker/producer from Wellington and this whole album was made and recorded in her bedroom. She uses loops of live instruments, has an MPC named Lola and has been likened to Erykah Badu with her sometimes raspy and always stunning vocals. Although we don’t have her album here in the library yet, you can listen to it on SoundCloud for free, and even download it for free from Estère’s Bandcamp page!

New Zealand Music Month is here!

Yes, that means it’s already May! WHAT? How did this happen?! Four months of the year have already gone past in a complete blur, and here we are at NZMM 2014. There are so many events happening up and down the country, and lucky for us we have a whole bunch of events happening in our libraries! More events may be added to this list later, check back to keep up to date with the scheduled library events.

Thursday 8th 12pm Amiria Grenell (Kids stuff) – Central Children’s area
Saturday 17th 11am Kitty Hart – Central Library Mezzanine Bridge
Friday 22nd 12pm Amiria Grenell (Adults stuff) – Central Library YA area
Friday 23rd 5pm Andy Gibson – Central Library YA area
Friday 23rd 7pm Jessie Moss – Newtown Library
Thursday 29th 12pm Mahinarangi Maika – Central Library YA area
Friday 30th 12pm Mat Enright – Central Library YA area

There will also be a whole lot of events out in public places, such as Courtenay Place near Tommy Millions (yum!), the Courtenay Place tripod, Cuba Street near the Body Shop, Lambton Quay, the train station and more. You should be able to find some information on these in your local library. You can also check out the full schedule of NZMM events at the official website.

And to finish off, here’s a video for “St Louis” featuring Gemma Syme by The Shocking Pinks that a couple of my very clever friends worked on:

I’ll be featuring music-centred posts all through May, so check back next Tuesday for more NZMM goodness!

Winging Your Way Way Through The Weekend, 1-2 June

Kia ora folks!

Wintry splendour is raining down on us with things to do this weekend. It’s a pretty special one because we get one more day than usual – sweet! It’s the Queens Birthday (but not really, her real birthday’s in April. We’re just kind minions and let her have two). One way you could spend your extra day off is revelling in the glory of our monarch or you could do some of these things:

Te Papa re-opens the Visa Platinum Gallery with an Andy Warhol exhibit. “Warhol: Immortal” celebrates Mr. Pop Art himself. He did all sorts of really great things and liked Campbells Soup too. Not to be confused with The Dandy Warhols.

Geeks unite! The closest thing to a Comic-Con on our shores, Armageddon, visits Wellington for the first time this year.

Less Dance Dance Revolution more… real dance? Stage Challenge/J-Rock hit Wellington (starting tonight).

Another Film Festival is in town. Out Takes with the pun-tastic byline, “reel queer film festival” is screening a few choice youth flicks.

Maybe you’re one of the fine few who aren’t having a “weekend” and are instead working it away? Here’s an endgame for those hard earned pingers – they’re building Springfield!

To end NZ Music Month Shapeshifter release “Delta” just in time for the weekend playlist.

Later!

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, 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

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 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 Month at Wellington City Libraries

Ash Graham 16 year old singer songwriter who is one of the performers for NZ Music Month.

It’s May! So once again it’s New Zealand Music Month. What’s the Library doing this year to celebrate & profile Wellington musicians?  Well…

This May, Wellington libraries will turn into temporary concert venues – showcasing young local talent. Up-and-coming young artists will perform afternoon gigs at Wellington Central Library and at the Ruth Gotlieb (Kilbirnie), Newtown, Johnsonville and Karori branch libraries. These free events will take place Monday 16 to Friday 20 May.

nzmm-2011

– Kilbirnie on Monday 16 from 4 to 5pm
– Newtown on Tuesday 17 from 4 to 5pm
– Johnsonville on Wednesday 18 from 4 to 5pm
– Karori on Thursday 19 from 4 to 5pm
– Central on Friday 20 from 4 to 5pm

There will also be evening performances at ZEAL and The Jimmy Bar at the St James Theatre.

Wellington City Council is organising these live performances in partnership with Play It Strange, a trust established in 2003 to encourage young New Zealanders to develop interests and skills in songwriting and musical performance.

Other Music Month events include a series of Music Workshops.

On Monday 30 and Tuesday 31 May Toi Poneke Arts Centre will hold free workshops for independent musicians. The workshop on Monday is for musicians who want to break into the Australian market and will be full of hits and tips for people who have already crossed the Tasman.

This is followed on Tuesday with the launch of the Instrumental’s Musician’s Publicity Toolkit – with a live performance from Mara TK. The toolkit is a musician’s essential guide to self-publicity and online marketing.

A full list of events, times and venues in Wellington for New Zealand Music Month can be found on the Toi Poneke Arts Centre’s Facebook page

Further facebook details with a full list of performers after the jump

Read More

Zombies Vs. Gleeks

 Brains

You, your mates and zombies, Glee, prizes, gloating rights, free food, brains! Wait, what…?

Okay, there might not be brains, but eveything else will be there. Pull a team of Glee and Zombie experts together and get ready for the Zombies Vs. Gleeks Trivia Night.

Open for teams of  13 to 18 year olds (min 2 – max 4), the Zombies Vs. Gleeks Teen Trivia Night will be at the Wellington Central Library on 27th May at 6.30pm. Registrations open soon and places will be limited so get your team ready to go and start planning your costumes.

More Tunes Y’all

Three new CDs this week. You know where to go if you want to hear them; the library! And as always they are free to issue on your YA cards. Aren’t we kind?

41rqtpbx5ql__sl160_aa115_3OH!3 deal in jokey electro-crunk chock full of tongue-in-cheek gangsterisms. Their album is titled Want and if you want (my tired attempt at punnery) some silliness in your ears, they will provide.

Return Of The Mack II serves up more classic R&B jams, in fact it says so right on the cover. Included on the 18 track comp are folks like Aaliyah, Coolio and The Fugees.

New Zealand Music Month may be drawing to a close, but there’s still time to slip a new compilation  in isn’t there? There is? Oh good. Check out Ultimate Weekend Sessions, spread generously over its two discs are a whole bunch of local dub/R&B/hip hop tunes by Trinity Roots, Rhombus, Katchafire and all the other usual suspects.

Top 5 NZ Music Videos

It’s been New Zealand Music Month for a week now, so what better time to post a list of the top 5 New Zealand music videos of all time?*

5. The Sneaks – I’m Lame

 Never fails to make me chuckle…

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The Phoenix Foundation, in the library, in person

Event alert! We’ve got another group of musos for NZ Music Month!

Samuel Scott and Luke Buda from The Phoenix Foundation will be at the Wellington Central Library on May 28th at 4.30pm. They’re taking a break from their national tour to visit and give you guys a chance to get up close and personal and ask them about whatever you want to know (like music and stuff).

The Phoenix Foundation did the theme song for that cool NZ Movie Eagle Vs. Shark! Here’s some of their work.

No bookings are required at this free event. Put it in your diaries!

NZ Music Month – Rapture Ruckus

NZ Music Month is May (which is next month, like two weeks away), and as usual the library will hold NZ music-related events. On the 8th of May, Friday, at about 4.30pm, Wellington hip-hop artist Rapture Ruckus will be in to talk on ‘How to get somewhere as a muso’. Mark your calendars!

Check out a clip of him performing live: