Beaut Commute

Let England Shake

 

There is a bit of OCD that runs in our family - it focuses more on the obsessive than the compulsive resulting in lots of deep thinking but not so much dishwashing. For me, I find it manifests when listening to music. Even as a teenager I wouldn’t just play the same song time and time and time and time again. I would repeat my favourite section of the same song time and time and… you get the picture. There was a certain bit at 1:53 in when it switches to instrumental in Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl that I would rewind on the cassette until it was all scratchy sounding.

 Over the years there have been other bits of music I listen to over and over: 2:51 into Bloc Party’s Pioneers when the drums really kick in… a spine tingling moment a mere four seconds into the London Symphony Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op 92 … that bit 4:43 into ‘Who drove the red sports car’ when Van (again) wails ‘Come on in out the rain!’ which is just so blimmin… sexy.

 My latest fixation is 17 seconds into PJ Harvey’s love and grief lament called England from her Feb 2011 album - ‘Let England Shake’. When Harvey’s voice hits the same key as the wailing in the background it makes my whole body respond. ‘Let England Shake’ is a big and bloody album. It deals with big themes taking on history and psyche of her country. As I listen to Harvey’s extraordinary voice I see a montage of faces – traumatised by war, reddened from beer and an open fire at the pub, weathered by the moors, oppressed by royalty and religion and hysterical from the most recent riots. These are heartsick and homesick laments and tributes to her homeland. Good stuff.

The Harrow & The Harvest

 
 

I have heard it said the only thing wrong with Gillian Welch’s albums is that she doesn’t make enough of them. They are always worth waiting for and The Harrow & The Harvest is no exception.

Welch’s music kind of reminds me of a pair of hairclips I used to own. They looked like cute little red and white polka dot bows but when you got up close you saw they had a skull and crossbones in the middle. The music is pleasant to listen to but there also a pleasingly haunting tang to the lyrics.

The Harrow & The Harvest is another collaboration David Rawlings, her long time musical partner. Rawlings is no chump himself, having collaborated with bands like Bright Eyes and the Old Crow Medicine Show. Having seen the two of them perform I find it a little strange that they are not marketed more as a double act – being as he contributes as much as she. Ginger Rogers syndrome maybe?

Anyway, this album is terrific to listen to and I also like the fact that you can see how the album cover was made in a video on Welch’s website.

Imelda May - Mayhem

So we went to Womadelaide.. which was totally great. Lots of good music, no drunks and hardly any patchouli oil. Here is my poem:

WomadelODE

Have you got sunscreen on?

No turn around, I'm waving. No the other way. I'm by the red flag. Yes waving - you are walking towards me.

I think I'll try and see the harpist at 6 and make it over to Stage 2 for the Turkish percussion dude at 6.30pm.

Do you think you will be interested in Fire Pois when we get back home?

 

Anyway, now we are back and no longer are we surrounded by international musicians, colourful flags and people in Thai Fisherman pants. But Womad lives on in my heart and my ears. My favourite act was Imelda May - the gorgeous Irish 50s style swing/rockabilly songstress who had the crowd beside themselves with excitement (reaching a crescendo when she did her cover of 'Tainted Love').

 

She's a good allrounder I reckon - pretty well everyone will tap their feet to Imelda from your three-year-old to your Mum to your Kelpie.

 

If you don't download all of her latest album, 'Mayhem', at least download 'Inside Out', 'Pyscho' and 'Johnny got a boom-boom'.

 

Guest Candy: Bitchin commute

Beaut's guest Candy La Coque (Angela Meyer) is a mother, dancer, artist, sailor and blogger - read her adventures as she sails halfway round the world here. 

As a newish mama, I think it would be fair to say my commute involves walking down the hallway to the lounge, from the laundry to the washing line and on a good day from the front door to the letter box. Gone are the days of long bus and train journeys when I could get stuck into a book or listen to an album.

With only three and a half minutes at my disposal (I have small feet and a long hall) I have loaded my iPod with the genius that is the 80’s pop song. This little gem of synthesized goodness fits perfectly into these commute times.

My love of 80’s music has been long, it has been there since the 80s.

It was only natural then that in  2005 a friend and I decided that it was time to mix Dirty Dancing meets Flashdancemeets Footloose meets The Solid Gold Dancers meets you in your lounge when you were 11 and so The Real Hot Bitches was born. We love dance routines, have a real fondness for legwarmers and sweat bands, Lycra G Strings, and have no training as dancers but what we lack in technique, boy do we make up for in PASSION!

Fast forward five years and not only do I have a bitchin soundtrack to my life,  I have kickarse routines to bust out at playgroup. Each Saturday I commute to Island Bay Surf Club ( No 1 bus)  to join the other bitches in a homage to all things 80’s.

On my play list are these hit songs. They make putting the washing out fun.

Poison by Alice Cooper. The is my all time favorite routine.  It speaks to me.  Think snakes, arse slapping and death by  poison. We first learnt this routine in the Palmerston North Deerstalkers Hall.

Edge of 17 by Stevie Nicks, a beautiful song about a cougar stalking a her prey. It involves flapping of wings, pretending to walk down stairs, a canon ( that is a dance term) and it is quite long so it is a good work out.

Shot Through the Heart by Bon Jovi.  We broke the world record for the largest synchronized dance routine dancing to this.

Pour some Sugar by Def Leopard.  A classic. One of the first routines we ever did.   Great chorus to sing along too.

Doves Cry by Prince.  How satisfied is your mother eh?

Push it by Salt ‘n’ Pepa. The day we first learnt this, David Lange died. We also performed if for the Lithuanian president. This is where the bitches get political.

So if this sounds like you check out www.real-hot-bitches.co.nz  for more info and as luck would have it there is aMelbourne chapter.

Our next hit show The Fierceness opens at Downstage in Wellington in August.

Bitch out

Candy xx

 

Guest Imogen: Staff Benda Bilili - Tres Tres Fort

I live in deepest Africa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. My adopted home Goma is a chaotic dusty town on the shores of the magnificent sparkling Lake Kivu, half buried in lava and teeming with life and noise. Goma is in the troubled eastern Congo, but its more a Wild West kind of town. Due to a variety of contributing factors, not least the lack of a functioning State, Goma does without a few things that we take for granted; things like a reliable water and electricity supply, telephones, a postal system, metal roads, police and public transport. Just to name a few.   

Most locals get around on foot. Only if they are very well off do they take a moto (motorbike taxi). Goma also has a special kind of commuter indigenous to our town – the chukudu driver. Chukudus are huge scooters made from wood. They are used to transport heavy goods to the market, to the port and around town and they can carry up to 500kgs – that’s half a ton!  

 

I don’t really commute as such. I get around town on foot (only in some areas and only during daylight hours), by moto or by large white NGO 4x4. My office is really close to my house and I usually walk which takes about five minutes. Five minutes of scrabbling over lava, inhaling dust, shaking kids hands, dodging motos, and saying ‘bonjour’. Past the palatial grounds of the International Red Cross, and the men sitting across from their gates each morning hoping to earn a few francs as a day worker. Past the dilapidated, weed- eaten building that houses Goma’s High Court. Past the little roadside shacks selling mobile phone cards, the mamas with babies on their backs and huge tubs of pineapples balanced on their heads, the man who sits under a pock-holed umbrella repairing shoes, and the soldiers sitting guard outside the home of the Army General. Past all that I find the office of the international NGO where I work, and the gates are opened to me by the smiling guards. ‘Jambo mama’ they say. Nope, not much room for books, podcasts or crosswords on my commute.  

But if I were able to take the bus or tram or train to work in Congo, I would be listening to the amazing Congolese band, Staff Benda Bilili. Staff Benda Bilili are a group of paraplegic musicians living on the streets of Congo’s capital, Kinshasa. This is how they are described on the back of their album Trés Trés Fort: "Four senior singer/guitarists on makeshift wheelchairs are supported by a young, all-acoustic rhythm section and a 17-year old prodigy performing infectious guitar-like solos on a one-string electric lute he designed and built himself out of a tin can."

‘Benda Bilili’ means ‘look beyond appearances’. Their music is at once melancholic, funky and playful. Their songs talk about Congolese life – being a street kid, the need to vaccinate your kids against polio, and the importance of family and African pride. My favourite song is called ‘Tonkara’ (Cardboard): 

I once slept on cardboard

Good luck hit me, I bought myself a mattress

It can happen to you, to him, to them

A man is never finished

Chance can hit you without warning

It’s never too late in life

Someday I’ll make it too 

Staff Benda Bilili on My Space

Imogen Prickett is an aid worker, communicator, writer, blogger & photographer living in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis

This is too foot tappin’, thigh slappin’, yee-hahhin’, dance with your brother-uncle good to be true. Here we have three young English siblings who dress in vintage clothes, still live with their Mum and Dad,  are influenced by R&B, swing and hillbilly record on vintage 8 tracks and old BBC mics in their home studio and between them play: guitar, piano, banjo, lapsteel guitar, harmonica, double bass, ukulele, drums, trombone, xylophone and accordion.

Oh Gen Y (or whatever the Gen is that was born in the 90s) you are reDEEMed!

Kitty (17), Daisy (21) and Lewis (19) recently toured Australia and charmed its inhabitants with tracks like  ‘Going Up The Country’  and ‘Mean Old Son Of A Gun’ .

There is a special Australian Tour version of their eponymous album available on iTunes – you might not want to get the whole album but I recommend you get at least a couple of tracks.

Sometimes listening to hillbilly music while on the train seems like a good soundtrack...

Vampire Weekend

 

Christian Lander is the writer of the blog Stuff white people like. In a 2008 interview with Salon, he names Vampire Weekend as ‘the whitest band’. 

I would like to be pissed off at Christian but the truth is that I am exactly the people he describes. No way round it. In some ways he has captured the zeitgeist of my white identity. 

Anyway, if you haven’t already heard of them, Vampire Weekend is made up of four New York guys who met at Columbia University. Their first eponymous album came out in 2008 and is very good for commuting because it is melodic and cheerful while still being intelligent and not too saccharine. 

Their second album, Contra, was released on January 9. It’s also very good. It was recorded in Mexico which gives it a different edge. 

 Here’s their website where the album is streamed or you can download Contra from iTunes. And (thanks Gem) here they are, all buttoned up and intellectual playing in Juan’s Basement.