My favourite miserable Scot, Malcolm Middleton is coming to NZ in May. Facebook says Malcolm is playing The Whammy bar in Auckland but everywhere else says it’s The Kings Arms on May 12th. At least everyone agrees he’s playing The San Francisco Bath House in Wellington on May 13th.
Malcolm’s new album, Sleight of Hand, is out now. It’s mostly acoustic collection leftovers, covers and wind ups. I’m looking forward to the next project though - “Right now, everything sounds like a fat child throwing a Casio keyboard down a flight of stairs and hitting an old man at the bottom who’s playing Verve songs badly on an over-priced guitar,” says Malcolm.
Meanwhile the filthier half of Arab Strap Aidan John Moffat has released the rather dirty, R rated I Can Hear Your Heart and a singing bottle opener that plays a wee ditty by Aidan every time you crack open a beer. Now I have several rather nice bottle openers including one from Suck UK that looks like an unsuspecting house key and the trusty one that I won at the Massey University chilli eating competition but now I think I need one more.
Carl Shuker’s excellent novel The Lazy Boys is being made into a feature film directed by Brendan Donovan (Insider’s Guide to Happiness, Insider’s Guide to Love, Grasp, Here) and produced by Michael Wren.
Bill Hammond - Jingle Jangle Morning
November 17th 2007 - February 10th 2008
Wellington City Gallery
free!
Jingle Jangle Morning, taken from a verse in Bob Dylan’s song ‘Mr Tambourine Man’, is the title of a Bill Hammond painting depicting majestic avian musicians and serpentine creatures who sing, dance and play instruments upon a floating world of golden clouds and mountainous divides.
Bill Hammond’s sentient birdmen came about after a trip to the Auckland Islands where birds rule. Like New Zealand before the people got there.
Prints.co.nz have a couple of Bill Hammond prints for sale for $79NZD. If you’re in Lyttelton be sure to visit Volcano Cafe and Lava Bar, it’s a nice bar with good food and they have some Bill Hammond art on the walls.
It’s been available for a couple of months but I only just spotted it on Gorilla vs. Bear via Last.FM - Great Lake Swimmers have released a 5 track live EP recorded at Toronto’s Church of the Redeemer for free download (31.5Mb).
Great Lake Swimmers have also contributed an original song entitled, “Gonna Make it Through This Year”, to a new compilation release named “PEACE ON EARTH: A HOLIDAY ALBUM” available exclusively as a digital download from Hard to Find a Friend and featuring fifteen never-before-released covers of Christmas classics and special holiday themed originals from various artists. Profits raised from this album go directly to Toys for Tots to give gifts to needy children on Christmas morning.
Here’s Scott Cudmore’s new video for “Your Rocky Spine”
PJ Harvey is coming to New Zealand and Australia in February for a handful of exclusive solo shows. A limited number of tickets will be available from http://www.frontiertouring.com from Thursday 8 November 12 noon AEST to Friday 9 November 12 noon AEST. Tickets will go on-sale to the general public on Tuesday 13 November 9:00am local time.
Polly will be performing an intimate solo set, for one night only, in each of the following cities:
Wednesday February 13 Civic Theatre, Auckland
Ticketek 0800 TICKETEK or http://www.ticketek.co.nz
Friday February 15 Opera House, Sydney
Ticketek 132 849 or http://www.ticketek.com.au; SOH Box Office 02 9250 7777
Sunday February 17 Concert Hall, Brisbane
Qtix 136 246 or http://www.Qtix.com.au
Wednesday February 20 Hamer Hall, Melbourne
Ticketmaster 136 100 or http://www.ticketmaster.com.au
Friday February 22 Concert Hall, Perth
BOCS ticketing 08 9484 1133 or http://www.bocsticketing.com.au
Flaming Lips are doing a Halloween parade in Oklahoma City - The March of a Thousand Flaming Skeletons. They’re looking for 1000 people to be the flaming skeletons. You need to be in Oklahoma 26-27th for the parade. It costs $25 but you get to keep your torch and skeleton outfit so that would be a Halloween constume sorted for life.
Email deathmarchreservation@hellfireltd.com for more information
Kevin Drew’s new video “Backed Out on the…”, the first single from his forthcoming album, Broken Social Scene Presents: Kevin Drew, “Spirit If…”
This song was recorded with Joules Scott Key of Metric and Bang Lime on drums and J Mascis and Kevin Drew on guitar and vocals. The video happened last minute after a Dinosaur Jr show in Toronto where J, Lou and Murph all came to the shoot to hang out. John Caffery from KIDS ON TV was hired to come and dance his ASS off and a spontaneous party was put into effect. There were seven mirrors, one disco ball, four lights, one bottle of rum, three bottles of tequila, 62 beers, four crew and 17 people. It got put together on the day of the shoot and became the party of the year. It cost three thousand dollars to make… It was priceless
GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS and (weewerk) are asking for 30 seconds of your favourite/significant travel footage. Share your secret spot, beautiful scenery or interesting experiences with us. Selected footage will be edited together to produce a finished video for Great Lake Swimmers’ Passenger Song.Your submission needs to be on common digital video file formats (ie. AVI, MOV, MP4) and NTSC encoded. Each submission should include your full contact information, mailing address, phone number and email address.
By submitting video content, you the copyright holder agrees to permit footage, in whole or part, to be used with discretion by (weewerk) in producing this video. Submissions should be emailed to info@weewerk.com. Deadline for submissions is August 31st, 07.