Blog on the Tracks

Writer/reviewer Simon Sweetman covers music for The Dominion Post, North And South and TV One's Good Morning show. He cares far too much about music and the list of bands he loves is far longer than the list of groups he has shown no love.

Gig review: Raekwon in Wellington

04:00pm 22 Mar 2010

1 comment

Just a few weeks after a visit from RZA to the capital (click here for the blog/review) NZ plays host to Raekwon, another Wu-Tang Clan member.

Raekwon
San Francisco Bathhouse
Sunday, March 21

Corey Woods is better known as Raekwon or Raekwon The Chef and his visit to Wellington - as part of his first solo tour of NZ and Australia - comes just a few weeks after a show from one of his Wu-buddies.

Raekwon's reputation as one of the best MCs from the Wu-Tang Clan - and therefore one of the best MCs working in hip-hop in the mid-to-late-90s - was confirmed with the release of his first solo album, Only Built for Cuban Linx... It arrived relatively swiftly after the Clan's revered debut album, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and is one of the strongest solo albums from the Clan affiliates.

So, as was the case when RZA played the Bathhouse, Raekwon served up plenty of tasty hits from Wu's 36 Chambers. And again people loved to hear the old hits - this one was a favourite (for obvious chant-along reasons). And there was a tribute to the Wu's fallen soldier, ODB - with another banger for the crowd to bop along to in Shimmy Shimmy Ya.

Gig review: HLAH in Wellington

09:00am 22 Mar 2010

6 comments

Last week I interviewed Nigel Regan from Head Like a Hole and as part of the interview we gave away some prize-packs (double-tickets, CD, T-shirt). The band played at The San Francisco Bathhouse on Friday. So here we go with a review:

Head Like a Hole (HLAH)
San Francisco Bathhouse
Friday, March 19

There were a few opening acts, and I only caught the very end of Beastwars but I can see why people like them. I did get to see Gaywyre. Several people had told me to make sure I saw them. They are clearly developing a following and their brand of cock-rock attempts, somehow, to be a sincere parody. This is more Anvil than Spinal Tap - an obvious love of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest permeating the material.

I liked hearing the band - but I'm not sure they are quite as good as their fan base seems to think. The music is not sharp enough to transcend the novelty-act feel. But maybe they'll get there.

HLAH sound very good live these days, settling into a new feel that recreates enough of the past and suggests there is a future for this band (again). They have been reinstated for over a year now, following the reunion for last year's Homegrown show.

Ad Feedback

What decade would you pick?

08:40am 19 Mar 2010

89 comments

"People can be funny about their pasts, because every one of us grows up in a golden age of some sort, where the music's always better and the TV's always smarter, and our sports team was at its most brilliantly scintillating. Most of the time, they are right as well."

That is a quote from Dave Thompson's Classic Rock Manifesto: I Hate New Music. I haven't got much further than that quote yet (and that was found on page 7) but even if the book turns out to be a turkey, it's provided me with a starting point for a topic I've been meaning to write about for a while now.

The topic is - as you'll see from the title - what decade would you pick? And that means one decade only - and we are of course relating this to music rather than TV and sports teams. And yes, I say that knowing that pop-culture and trivia and nostalgia and anything else you might bundle up need to feed off each other. Music might mean something because of the films that came out in a particular year. Music might be linked to TV shows - but that's not always a good thing is it (cf: Rembrandts, The).

So this discussion doesn't require you to go into a time-machine. We are talking about staying in the present but choosing only one decade of music to support. Can this even be done? Well - for the purposes of today's post it can be. It's not acceptable to state that you listen to too broad a range of music. We all do. You'll sound just like any other person that goes to the counter of a CD store with one album by Air Supply and one by Bill Withers and one by Zed and proudly proclaims, "my collection is quite eclectic".

But the idea for this topic didn't start with Dave Thompson and the I Hate New Music book. It started with a conversation I had when I was 13.

Ad Feedback

The Chris Parry interview (part two)

03:30pm 18 Mar 2010

4 comments

So, the part one of this story was posted earlier today. Chris Parry was, once, the drummer of New Zealand band The Fourmyula. And tonight (in Auckland) and on Saturday (in Upper Hutt) he will resume that role. But when The Fourmyula called it a day Parry moved away from the stage, to a behind-the-scenes role in music.

Robert Smith He founded Fiction Records - best known as the home of The Cure. He produced records by The Jam. He worked as a talent scout for Polydor Records in one of the golden eras for both music (output) and the A&R role (the talent scouts). It wasn't such a behind-the-scenes role the way Parry played it, but it sounds good now saying it that way.

We had chatted happily about The Fourmyula reunion. But I couldn't let the opportunity slip - I had to talk to him about some of his other adventures; about hanging with Robert Smith and Paul Weller...

"Robert Smith lives in his own bubble - that was part of the appeal and the frustration of working with him." That's a sample quote. You hear that - you have to ask more, right?

When Parry moved from playing drums to working for a record company he figured his skills ("being a musician") would help him. He had been on stage, he had rehearsed and recorded. He had travelled in vans - and on a boat; The Fourmyula travelled to England by boat and found out when they were on board that they'd be playing as part of paying their way. So those experiences were going to be useful to Parry, he figured.

The return of The Fourmyula

12:20pm 18 Mar 2010

13 comments

Tonight, in Auckland and on Saturday in Lower Hutt you can see the return of The Fourmyula.

These two shows are in support of the new four-CD set, The Complete Fourmyula. This box-set collects all of the band's singles and albums, including the previously unreleased Turn Your Back on the Wind, an album recorded in the UK for Decca, then shelved.

It's an exciting album for fans - old and young. The music feels not entirely out of place with today's crop of psychedelic/folk-referencing acoustic troubadours. Admittedly, it carries the weight of its 40 years more obviously than something that sounds old but is new like, say, Midlake - but Turn Your Back on the Wind really is a remarkable album; as is Creation and Green B Holiday.

The difference is Turn Your Back is also exciting to the band hearing it again, ecstatic about the release.

I caught up with Fourmyula drummer Chris Parry, who admitted, "it was bizarre, really, hearing it again, because I played it with my son and it was just, um, bizarre", he stresses the word, aware he's repeating it. "I honestly couldn't remember it," pause for laughter and then, "definitely some black spots. But as we played through it, bits of it came back to me but other bits remain a mystery. And that has been kinda neat, rediscovering this album, hearing it again - but it's a first time in a way."

<< Previous Page Next Page >>

Blog terms and conditions

You're welcome to post in the comments section of our blogs. Please keep comments under 400 words. When submitting a comment, you agree to be bound by our terms and conditions.

Blog sections:

Slideshow Entertainment

Slideshow Life & Style

Dominion Post Headlines

RSS