Neil Young is headlining the 2009 BDO - confirmed. WTF?! This is awesome, but perhaps not so, cause I probably won't be going. If I do spend that amount of money on something it'd be Camp, but shit... Only chance I'll probably ever get to see Neil Young. Doesn't mean the show will be any good, I suppose. And BDO crowds are arse compared to Camp-goers. 

I'm in the midst of recording a song that drove me insane trying to record three years ago. This time, I have better skillz and better gearz, and I'm not being so retarded about it.

Since I have to quit drinking by the end of the year (not that as I drink as often as some of you, it seems), I've decided on a plan. I'm swapping the coke/bourbon premixes for wine, because a) it's healthier, b) you don't have to drink as much, c) you don't drink as much as they're not caffeinated so you don't stay up all night, d) it's cheaper, and e) you feel crapper the next day on less, so you drink less knowing this.

Except when doing mega-tidies, cause I need the energy, but if the house stays tidy (for the millionth time I'm saying this is the stay-tidy time) that won't matter. Or something! But whatever happens, I have to quit by new years. With the exception perhaps of Camp, though I probably won't be going anyway even if there is one.

I'm going to go do Book #27 now. It's my Saturday night.

Both pics courtesy of petrajane. First, here's Kent and I onstage - him looking all insane and awesome, me rocking out and fat...



Then myself (far left, believe it or not), my future bandmates Jed and Amy, and future Clinton-founder Emma out the back of an Eye-TV gig in early 1999. I can't believe how skinny I was - all I ate was pasta and ice cream, and look at me! Fuck!

 

I can't believe that's how skinny I used to be. Shiat. To get there again, or even close, I'd have to lose a quarter of my current weight. Is that even possible?

WEEKLY TOP FIVE!

1. I'll Be Lightning - Liam Finn
2. The Half Light Symphony - Battle Circus
3. Disasteradio - Visions
4. Radiohead - In Rainbows
5. Hot Chip - Made in the Dark

So, Camp A Low Hum... I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow, chronological account because (a) I'm bound to leave stuff out, and (b) it's hard to remember what happened on what day, seeing as there was very little sleep and very little to differentiate each objectively - they all involved mass numbers of bands, unexpected events, drinking, swimming, wandering randomly, meeting people, dancing, looking for food, etc etc. Instead here are some highlights, tales, warnings and random bits in no particular order...

We managed to play only the first show of our scheduled two, as John fell ill and was unable to stay. Kent drove him back up to Auckland, and unfortunately missed half of camp. We played okay, nothing spectacular but solid enough. Our lone new song went alright, much to our relief. It was odd playing 100% sober, to a 100% sober audience, at one in the afternoon sun, after driving half way across the island. We were really looking forward to the second show, instead I was there thanking those who turned up and apologising for not playing. Everyone was really cool though, a common thread throughout the whole four days.

The first night's "big" act was Liam Finn, who was brilliant. After the first few songs, I thought perhaps his trademark looping thing was a gimmick, as he'd only used it at the end of the songs proper... but from then in, it was all integrated masterfully. He'd have live loops coming in and out, the songs sounding as amazing as they would with a full band but seeming even cooler considering it was only him and a backing vocalist/tambourinist. Either that, or Kent's pot had started to kick in, haha.

I went for several swims over the camp's duration. One turned into an Htown/ex-Htowners vs the rest volleyball match, another was at some ungodly dark hour of morning when a friend Tu and I found some foam lightsabers and re-enacted pivotal scenes from the Star Wars series. Someone had the idea of shoudler-carrying battles, so I jumped on Tu and went up against a succession of challengers... losing to pretty much all of them. His volleyball skills didn't translate to Dan-carrying, and my volleyball skills (non-existent except when accidentally sconning Mo in the head) were unfortunately transferred whole.

One time I wasn't swimming, which I wish I had been, was when a pool rave broke out - that wasn't the part I regret missing, but soon enough Disasteradio came along and busted out a mean set right by the fence. It was only a five-minute walk to get my togs, so I must've been on the way somewhere else to pass that up.

It was cool hanging with Tonamu and Gareth again, I hadn't seen "Namu" in donkey's years.He hasn't changed a bit really, which was cool. They were camped out in a quiet area donkey's years away, which required a map to get to (for someone of my directional capabilities) so I didn't get over there much. They were hardly there either, to be honest.

Spent a lot of time hanging with Wellington Zak & Christy and their friend Frances; Heather was around a bit, but was often busy doing Boxwars/Foxcore stuff. Christy had some killer bruises and cuts from her birthday last weekend - she said she fell off a roof, I asked two questions: (a) was she drunk (yes), and (b) did she shout "I am a golden god!" beforehand (I can't remember her answer). Also hung out quite a bit with a tall guy called Neil, I think he might have been Wellington, I can't really recall. One night there were loads of people made up and dressed as zombies wandering around, so we decided to go Shaun of the Dead on them and get some cricket bats. Mine was missing, but I knew our neighbour had some - we got to their tent, and no one was there, but two bats were - a GM, and an iTomic. His first reaction was "grab the GM!" and I said no, the GM is probably worth a few hundred dollars, the iTomic - probably a few... dollars. So we took the iTomic, and hit the party were most of the zombies were - a '60s soul/beat party. I don't recall much else, but I woke up with the bat and a plastic AK47, which I think I found in the pool. I returned the bat, and some of the Htowners said they knew who owned the AK47, so I left it with them.

So So Modern were great - whatever they were playing wasn't anything I knew, don't think it was anything from their EP. MC Stormtroopa got up and did a song, Lord Vader... one of the musical highlights of my entire camp. After the first verse, Stormtroopa yelled something like "sing it with me" and I thought, yeah, like these couple of hundred people know the chorus... I quickly realised I was the only one, haha! Was awesome. Not forgetting, but being surrounded by a couple of hundred people singing, "Ye-ah, Lord VAY-der you are the greatest play-er..."

Boxwars kicked ass. I've never seen 30 people dressed in elaborate cardboard box defenses smack the crap out of each other to live dance-punk. Have you? There was even a Death Star and a Tie Fighter, but they stood no chance against samurai-dinobot guy and the giant-cock-monster complete with swinging balls and a BANG! flag that came out of it's phallus.

In the end it was won by a couple of girls who'd literally taped themselves together back to back - in recognition of just how dangerous that really was.

There was a boat in the jungle that everyone thought was out of bounds, as there was a sign next to it saying 'bands and crew only'. Seemed kind of weird to let bands on it, considering it was completely separate to any stage or performance area... wasn't till the last day when a rave spontaneously combusted on it (if not later) that I realised the sign was for the nearby stage, and no one was banned from the jungle boat. Luckily, cause I did find myself on it one night, with god knows who. Probably Neil.

The bus made twice-daily trips into Levin for people to stock up, and the one day I went was hilarious. The supermarket staff were obviously under-prepared for massive influxes of indie kids looking for cask wine and powerade, and not much else. The classic, stereotypical stoner which every music festival has to have even managed to leave his bag of pot on the counter at the liquor store, luckily for him the staff were kind enough to alert him.

I chatted to Liam Finn one day, who assured me the wrapping to his album I'll Be Lightning is indeed smokeable, as the paper - not as the active ingredient, so to speak. Some people have apparently tried stuffing the wrapper into their pipes and... you get the rest.

Some cool/dubious videos were playing in 'Cinema Aloha'. I caught about 45 minutes of the Star Wars Holiday Special, which has to be one of the worst pieces of TV I have ever seen, fullstop. To be honest, I only left to get another beer, then decided it was not worth going back to. Wiki it, seriously.

I did catch the first screening of Dark Side of the Rainbow, and was pleased to see Blink had got a pre-synched version with good sound. It doesn't work with PAL vs CD, you see...

Trans Am were great as always, even if by the 4th day so many of us were feeling over bands, over camp, over drinking, over not sleeping, and over wandering the darkness...

Shit, there's too much to talk about. Can't possibly relate it all. Tariqa's laminated map she made for me was a masterstroke though, the first two days of non-wornout map were awesome. After that, I kinda knew my way around, and when I got lost it was still cool cause I'd stumble across people playing music in random places and whatnot.

Who else was great? Connan and the Mockasins, despite people going on about their 'old' stuff bla bla bla... Batrider... Tiger Tones... Sam Scott/Liam Finn/Lawrence Arabia - oh yeah. On the first or second day, I stumbled across a band practise by a bunch of redneck looking dudes playing Wings songs. Turns out that was Lawrence Arabia and the Disciples of Macca - all Wings, all the time. Awesome. They even played Band on the Run and Jet.

Coming across random awesome stuff like that (and random not-awesome stuff like Operation Chloe) was pretty much what Camp was al ll about, especially considering we had no idea who was going to be there before we got there - except Trans Am.

There's way too much. I give up! Camp was crazy and awesome and if you didn't go this year you shouldn't go next year unless you know someone who went this year who isn't going next year cause then it'll get too big. Grrr, you made me sound all indie.

I'm bound to remember stuff I NEED to put in, so will do so as an edit beneath this point.

I got Pumpkins/QOTSA tickets!!! And already there are scalpers on trademe - scumbucketfuckfaces.

I will be writing about Camp either later today or tomorrow night.

I don't think it's got anything to do with my new-found respect for Yulia, but look at this pie chart showing the stats for lunaspark.net.

I get more hits from Russia than anywhere else. What's not shown in that graph though is another statistic: they barely download anything. The Americans and NZers do, though. And the Brits aren't too bad...

I'm glad to see Scud Of Freedom was downloaded 10.7 times in January though...

Anyway, I've uploaded the second re-recording of the year, this one's called I Singled Out Your Heart. Right-click save-as. It's a re-recording of this track, which sounds primitive and crap in comparison!

2003-me wrote some good songs, but had no idea when it came to production...

Camp A Low Hum is only a few days away now. I need to find something to sleep on - at this stage it'll probably be a crumpled-up duvet.

And on another note... how about that retard John Key? "Yeah, we're going to give school dropouts the chance for free tertiary education - fuck those brainy cunts who actually complete school when they're 16 or 17 and choose to study, they can fucking pay. And the rest of you kid? Off to the fucking army, you scum."

Can someone please give this guy a good cockpunching?


TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE LAST FORTNIGHT!

1. Rivers Cuomo - Alone
2. Radiohead - In Rainbows (disc 2)
3. Interpol - Our Love To Admire
4. Battle Circus - The Half-Light Symphony
5. Trans Am - Sex Change
6. I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - Fear Is On Our Side
7. The Mars Volta - Bedlam In Goliath
8. Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
9. Horrorpops - Kiss Kiss Kill Kill
10. Smashing Pumpkins - American Gothic EP

So you've heard of Yulia, right? The Hayley Westenra-like popera singer who moved here from Russia a few years back? Right. Well, today I proofed an article that's in the upcoming February issue of Real Groove about her recent antics, which intrigued me... check this out.



It's her on Good Morning, performing her new single Love Siege. I have only three words for it... W. T. F?! The best part is, in the article her manager/fiance claims it was deliberate and fully choreographed, inspired by Beyonce and Kylie videos. Err... I've seen plenty of Beyonce and Kylie videos, and I can't say I ever saw one that featured a guy standing on a practise guitar amp while a former popera singer wearing face paint fondled his knees and struggled to hit notes any Idol contestant would nail with ease.

The article I won't spoil further for you here, but it's well worth the magazine's cover price alone, trust me. Read this first though - the press release her manager put out earlier this month announcing their engagement is bizarre enough in itself, and a good primer for the full-on weirdness that is the Real Groove interview.

In other news... I'm reading The Tipping Point, which is quite interesting, and I'm enjoying it more than Gladwell's other well-known book, Blink. We've started writing new material in the band, the lack of a permanent practise space means it's taking a little longer to have ready than we'd have liked, but it'll be good to have some new material when they are ready, for Camp A Low Hum hopefully. Speaking of which, I was checking out the website for Camp yesterday, and holy crap. If there was something like that when I was 17, it'd have been the best four days of my life, haha! Could still be, but I'm less easy to impress and a little more grown up now (a little).

And on that note, I'm going to practise setting up my tent.

I bought a tent off trademe yesterday. I was going to try it out on the front lawn today, but instead the lawn is covered in building materials, as it seems we are getting a fence, which means we'll have a front lawn we can sit on without the street seeing. I'm not entirely convinced this means I'll actually spend time outdoors, but it might help to that end.

Why did I buy a tent? Camp, of course. It seems like it was ontly a few weeks ago we found out we were playing, and now it's only a couple of weeks till we head down. We're determined to have some new songs in the set by then, so I can only assume we're going to be practising to hell in the next fortnight. We had our first practise outside of Kent's old basement last week, in some guy's skody place where he's got a room for band practises set up. Cheap as chips, but I'm definitely bringing my own bottle of water next time.

I've been playing a bit of Sims 2 on the laptop, as difficult as it is. I thought real life was hard, but no... My characters get into this loop where they end up dying - they can't sleep because they're hungry, but they can't eat because they fall asleep before they get to the fridge. I tried to solve this problem by installing a grill in the bedroom, but it caused so many fires and contributed to the death count more than anything. In the end, the house was so full of ghosts and everyone just stood around pissing themselves over and over I had to restart.

In my current family, I started with a couple who quickly gave birth ("woo-hoo" was the first thing they did in the new house) to a boy, then a set of twins. I've had two nannies on the job, one of which continually takes one of the babies out of the high chair, puts him on the floor, picks him up and puts him back in the high chair, over and over. There's another death loop though - the mother puts the baby in the high chair to feed him, but notices he's tired, so takes him out. Then she notices he's hungry, so puts him back in the high chair... and over and over. None of the babies have died yet, I saved the last one when the mother fell asleep after taking him out and putting him on the floor - I got the baby to crawl away...

So otherwise I've been enjoying my new computer (2ghz duo core, 2g RAM, 450g HD) in all its things-happen-when-press-the-button awesomeness. One flaw I've noticed is its graphics card is some kind of Intel onboard thing, but the RAM seems to handle it fine anyway - Civ 4 plays fine, which is all I really ask for, hehe. For some bizarre reason however Age Of Empires 2 has glowing, nuclear grass, which visually is atrocious and makes the game near unplayable. I hardly ever played it anyway, so no worries.

Music software-wise, I had some hassle getting all the bits and pieces in place and working, as is to be expected when you're not only shifting old versions from one computer to another, but one operating system to another that insists on triple-checking everything. In the end, my Waves L2 VST plugin was rendered unusable, but somehow the later, flashier L3 popped up just fine, albeit in the Direct X set rather than VST, but ah well. At least it's there! And another essential tool in my mastering chain only works in 44 second pieces, but mastering's last in the process, so that's okay.

And working with FL Studio/Audition is such a breeze, everything works quickly and smoothly, especially now I've installed the ASIO audio drivers. One quirk is that I can't run two or more instances of FL Studio at once - if I do, only one has sound - I assume this either has something to do with the development status of the ASIO driver (only just has secured Vista functionality) or the particular way the soundcard on this computer is set up. No biggie anyway.

I've been working on a few demos though, trying to write upbeat, catchy things... here are a couple I've bashed out in otherwise empty afternoons: Name Deficient - Anti-Human Nous. Of course, they're extremely rough sketches and barely even songs, though I surprised my self at the Arctic Monkeys-ness of the second of those two, at least in some of the guitar. And I like the bassline in the former, probably more KittyHawk-ready.

What else? Oh yeah. Applying for jobs. Over and over.

Trans Am are playing at Camp A Low Hum, as well as a gig at the Kings Arms. This is so much awesome. It'll bring my number of Trans Am gigs up to five, unless they play twice at Camp, in which case, six. One of the best live bands you'll ever see in a venue smaller than whatever can hold Muse.

And I've decided to buy a new desktop. It just hit me this desktop is four years old now, and no longer the awesome computing device I thought it was when I got it. Time to get a duo core processor, RAM measured in the gigabytes, and a flat screen monitor. In other words, join the rest of you in the 21st Century.