Posts by Moz
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Hard News: Friday Music: Back to a…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Siouxsie Sioux ... History, eh?
I was a bit stunned to find she'd done a live performance of Nocturne at the Albert Hall not so long ago. Which, of course, I rushed out and bought.
Anyway, must dash off to be one of the 20 people reported in the media as attending the climate march in Sydney.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Back to a…, in reply to Rich Lock,
Interesting surveys. Apparently my musical tastes are very specific, in that none of the 25 samples covered the musical niches that I particularly like.
And Doug, yes.... but. Part of being a touring musician is sucking up the nonsense and delivering a decent performance. They didn't even try. Having seen other bands really have a bad time and still pull it out, my sympathy is limited. I mean, Lemonheads had a set flat fall down and take out their amp stack, so they did an acoustic set. A really, really good acoustic set. And they were well into the grinding you down part of their tour by then, you could see it backstage. JAMC... turned up, shot up, staggered on stage, said "F*** YOU" and waited for it to be over.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Back to a…, in reply to Nick Russell,
Yeah, JAMC live in Christchurch were nearly as bad as Oasis in Wellington a few years later, drunk abusive lead singer, poor musicianship from the instruments, just meh. I recall Straitjacket Fits played before JAMC and were much better, even as someone who's not really into them. We left after a few songs when it became obvious that it wasn't going to get better, along with half the rest of the audience.
I keep saying I'm not into boys with guitars but... and I'm going to say it again about JAMC. I like their later albums, and the less jangly guitar sounding songs. Darklands especially came together for me. Songs like Nine Million Rainy Days are just so melodramatic and self-involved that it's hard not to take it as satire, but it works for me both ways. "all my time in hell is spent with you", yeah, yeah, angsty teen boy, I get it, you're sad. Still good music though.
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Hard News: Stories: Home, in reply to Francisco Blaha,
I'm glad you're here and like it. Long may that continue.
For me home is a mixture. Growing up we moved fairly often, but only within the little town I grew up in so I never changed schools, just houses. That and moving regularly when I was at uni have made me more willing to move, but also aware of the value of "stuff". I'm kind of itinerant, but I travel heavy.
Or more accurately, I'm aware of the cost of replacing or hiring stuff when I don't have it because I got rid of it when I moved. So I own a bloody great steel-framed workshop bench with a 30kg engineering vice bolted to it, because that's something that I use a lot. Trying to fake it with a little clamp-on vice... doesn't work. And so on, until I have ~20 cubic metres of stuff weighing several tonnes. At least, I did when we moved from Melbourne to Sydney a couple of years ago.
Place is likewise mixed. To some extent home is where my partner is, and that's Sydney. But we have a shitty house in a shitty location, and that doesn't feel like home. I'm hoping that building a granny flat will fix that, but right now there's a whole lot of "can't do that until the flat is built" in my life. The "garage" leaks but can't be fixed since it's is made of asbestos and while we wait to rebuild it my tools are rusting and I can't build much. I can't plant much garden because it's too likely to be damaged when we build. Etc, etc. It is, unsurprisingly, very stressful.
My roots in NZ are more more tenuous by the day. That's largely because my partner can't move to NZ, so I can't either, so I'm only ever going to be a visitor. But I do like to visit.
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Hard News: Ten Thousand Maniacs, in reply to Russell Brown,
a declaration of war, that does not mean France – or the rest of the world – needs to return the
Too late, war was declared 5, 10, 50, 500 years ago.
This isn't good vs bad, this is peace vs war. And war is winning.
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I know it's been mentioned before, but the quota for Maori MPs didn't seem to bring about the downfall of civilisation. The main downside to quotas I can see is that if we had quotas for idiots they'd fill up really fast and some existing MPs would miss out.
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Up Front: How I Learned to Stop Worrying…, in reply to Sacha,
When Sydney Morning Herald columns are syndicated here, it feels like a time warp.
I remember that, back when it was better put together than the free community newspaper put out by our local real estate agents. It scares me that Key has brought NZ parliament down to a level where the Australian one seems quite sensible by comparison. Don't do that.
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Living in Oz at the time I loved it when NZ had 5 women in the top jobs, because Australia was still trying to come to terms with a woman leading a minor party. Obviously the world ended and Australia fell into a fiery pit of doom as a result.
Since then they/we have womanned up a bit, but it's still bullshit most of the way down. I wonder if that term will change to cowshit, or bovineshit once we get more women in power?
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Up Front: How I Learned to Stop Worrying…, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
I too am worried that I might not become a Cabinet Minister because some grasping women who is more qualified than I am displaces me.
It could be worse, what if she was also more competent?
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Hard News: After Len, in reply to Russell Brown,
The brownfields housng development is based around the train-and-bus station, on the Western Line.
It doesn't take a lot in many cases. The Sydney light rail is a joke, but it's really making a difference along the corridor it's on. If it was done properly it'd be amazing, but even bad light rail beats the snot out of driving.
One secret benefit of brownfield is that often the people adding value can capture that - government own the land, add the facilities, then sell off the newly valuable land. Much better than just letting people near the new stuff pocket the proceeds... especially when there's no capital gains tax on them.