Category: music

Posted on

Well, wasn’t 2011 a fncked year?

If 2011 was a culinary experience it was a shit sandwich.
If 2011 was a culinary experience it was a shit sandwich.

For us anyway in Christchurch, New Zealand…

We thought we were doing quite well recovering from the big September 2010 earthquake and then the bigger February 22 earthquake hit. Hundreds of lives were lost, entire suburbs were rendered uninhabitable, and many people’s lives are in limbo while the recovery is being planned. I will be forever grateful that none of my family or friends were killed. A miracle really.

And then the June 13 aftershocks hit and then the December 23 aftershocks.

It’s like being served a shit sandwich and then being made to eat the leftovers every several months.

On a purely selfish note, many of my favourite shops, cafes, and music venues were destroyed. RIP places like the RDU studios, most of High Street, Galaxy Records, The Dux de Lux, Goodbye Blue Monday, The Media Club, and The Wunderbar.

But out of this disaster comes opportunity and creativity.

C1 and Alice in Videoland aim to reopen in the CBD early in 2012. James Scott reopened Embassy, Stencil, and SOS in Sydenham. Dave Imlay reopened Galaxy Records in St Asaph Street next door to the truly wonderful post-EQ Darkroom / The Archive. Kudos to these peeps for having the guts to stay and tough it out. Thank you for helping rebuild Christchurch from the ground up.

For much of 2011 music has been the last thing on my mind. I think I hardly listened to any music for several months after 22 February. Too mentally exhausted. And I never expected to hear any local music again in 2011, but as usual how wrong I was. Music and art may seem like a trivial luxury in these hard times but they are the things that will lift the spirits and help us feel optimistic about the future.

Andrew Dubber recently took a dig at music journalists decrying 2011 as a boring year in music in his blog Music journalism is the new boring. When I look back at 2011 I’m quite surprised how much music I ended up listening to and really enjoyed. And a lot of it is from Christchurch and New Zealand. All you’ve got to do is look in the right place.

So thank you to all the artists who contacted us through the year (via post, email, Facebook, and Twitter) and also to Chris Andrews of The Big City who put me on to some good local shit and RDU’s Bill Bird who never let earthquakes get in the way of good radio.

If you’re wanting a round up of 2011, here’s where to start…

Posted on

Picasso Core! God bless the Hallelujah Picassos.

Hallelujah Picassos.

“Sounding at odd times like a flying nun on drugs, a New Zealand punk rock garage band, or a psychotic turnbuckle gone AWOL, they can be jangly, grungy, or snot-nosed . . . very alternative pop.”
RAD magazine, November 1989

Our good buddy Peter McLennan) aka Dub Ayslum and former member of the Hallelujah Picassos) gave us the good news this week that the new retrospective Hallelujah Picassos album “Rewind the Hateman” is out now. Have a listen below.

First time I ever heard the Hallelujah Picassos was in 1989 on UFM (formerly Radio U and now RDU) with their track “Clap your hands”. Loved it so much I went out and bought the Pagan Records “Positive Vibrations” compilation.

At the time, with a lyric like “…clap your hands for Jesus…” I did wonder if they were a Christian band trying to put the “fun” back into “Christian Fundamentalism”, but a closer listen to the lyrics revealed that they probably weren’t.

The Hallelujah Picassos were active from 1988 through to 1996, and like contemporaries Salmonella Dub, Supergroove, and Head Like A Hole amongst others, brought some much needed colour to the local music scene.

I loved the Picassos because they crossed genres (garage, pop, reggae, dub), could be light and dark, and sounded like they were having a blast.

“Rewind the Hatemen” (the remastered 1993 album “Hateman in Love”) still sounds quite fresh. “Black Space Picasso Core” is still nutty sampledelic, “Bastardiser” still garage rocks, “Hello Pablo” still has sweet melodica action, and “Shivers” is still The Bats / Able Tasmans collaboration that never happened.

Here’s the track that (sort of) started it all…

More info:

Posted on

Fatboy Slim’s Debut TV Appearance… From 1986 – Video Special #2

Continuing the exploration of the pile of VHS cassettes that litter the Joint Mansion during our own personal Earthquake Recovery Process.

I think this mini Housemartins documentary was originally broadcast as part of BBC 2’s “Rock Around The Clock” music marathon on Saturday September 20th 1986. It might be horrifically twee and horribly dated but it has one saving grace (well, two if you include the performance of “Think For A Minute”). At just over the 3 minute mark there is footage of an impossibly young Norman Cook trying to mash up The Clash and Run DMC on a primitive looking pair of turntables.

For want of a better headline, I’m calling it Fatboy Slim’s debut TV appearance – nearly 10 years before he was even a gleam in Norman’s own eye.

Posted on

The Way They Were – Video Special #1

As I begin to sort through all the boxes on the floor that have acted as my storage system in post-earthquake Christchurch, it’s time to make some hard choices – should it stay or should it go?

In the case of VHS cassettes the answer seems to be – go, but not before I digitize some of the contents. And then upload them.

So here’s the first in an occasional series of videos that don’t seem to be available elsewhere on the web.

It’s an early 80’s UK Channel 4 programme hosted by Tony Wilson compiling dozens of live music performances and interviews, all culled from So It Goes and other Granada TV programmes that he had hosted a few years earlier.

The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Buzzcocks, Iggy Pop, The Fall, Elvis Costello, Blondie, Penetration, Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury, Tom Robinson, Magazine, John Cooper Clarke, XTC and Joy Division, amongst others, are featured. Some of them are making their TV debuts.

The quality can be quite ropey at times (for reasons outside of my control and explained on screen) but enjoy.

Special thanks to the crew at Dangerous Minds, who have already featured the video in one of their posts.

Further fuzzy treats in the coming weeks – the first TV appearance of the Manic Street Preachers and Norman Cook as Fatboy Slim in 1984…

Posted on

Tricks of the trade

Records at The Joint HQ.

The question we get asked most often by listeners, friends and acquaintances is how we find all the music we play week in and week out on The Joint.

(Interestingly enough, we’re not asked specifically where we get the music from. So we’ll leave it to you to obtain the music how ever you prefer. But please allow us to recommend the joys of visiting old-fashioned record shops such as Galaxy Records, Penny Lane Records, Real Groovy, Slow Boat Records, and Conch and droppping some dollars).

Now, I can’t vouch for The Herb Whisperer’s mysterious methods but here’s my tried and true, hit and miss method for finding music. It all boils down to finding some trusted starting points and then letting serendipity take over. Listed below are my current starting points…

Radio shows and podcasts

Human Pleasure @ Hourly Rates – every Monday night at 7pm NZT on RDU98.5FM William Bird Esq. plays two hours of fresh indie tunes. How he keeps up with it all I don’t know but the man is an inspiration to us all (even if he likes to sound grumpy about it).

The Sound Pellegrino podcast – Based in Paris, France the Sound Pellegrino record label is the baby brother of Institubes. The podcast is irreverently and lovingly hosted by DJ Orgasmic & Teki Latex and they play some very lovely house, techno and electro. Damn I would love to see their studio.

Stones Throw podcast – Peanut Butter Wolf’s Los Angeles record label is host to some of my favourite artists (Madlib, Dam-Funk, Madvillain). The podcasts are really mixes and contain some good random selections.

Guardian Music Weekly – More talk than music (which I curse sometimes) but good interviews, conversations and wit.

MP3 blogs, magazines and mailing lists

Rough Trade weekly mailout – heaps of releases and a silly amount of genres listed.

Keytars and Violins – god bless Leighton Jones. Hope he doesn’t mind me plundering his techno and cosmic disco selections for our show. But I can never resist.

Avant-Avant – a curated music selection updated every day at 10:00am GMT

Dub dot dash – Peter McLennan aka Dub Asylum (ex Hallelujah Picassos) writes and DJs. Lately he’s been writing about the 1990s Auckland label Deepgrooves. Catch him on his show “Ring the Alarm” Base FM every Saturday at 10am.

20jazzfunk greats – even after all this time still one of the best.

FACT mixes –  courtesy of FACT magazine. Hundreds of classy mixes available free.

And then if you feel nerdy you can do some further research using…

Discogs – perfect for checking back catalogues of labels and artists

The Hype Machine – possibly the simplest way of all. Pop in a favourite artist and you can end up joining the dots for hours on end. It’s how I ended up finding most of my favourite MP3 blogs.

“Huh?” you say…

If you’re wondering why we’re giving our “secrets” away, it’s all in line with the mission statement that our board of directors recently adopted: “We will be truly successful when people have stopped listening to us because they can find the good shiz for themselves.”