New podcast + playing this weekend

Well this post should be just enough to keep the blog ticking over?

I have received my new old CD player, a Denon 2000F Mk2, which is really from the dawn of the age of CD mixing but it works great (it seems to be temperamental on the odd CD but plays many scratched/burnt CDs). The buttons are rubber, which I dislike, but its instant start is instant, and making adjustments using pitch bend buttons (as opposed to a wheel, or touching the edge of a spinning record) seems to result in good mixes.

Fascinating stuff.

Anyway, here's the tracklist:

1. Nick Holder ft. Jemini - No More Dating DJs (John Ciafone vocal mix) [NRK Sound Division]
   
2. Freeform Five - Perspex Sex (Ewan Pearson's Hi-NRG remix) [Studio !K7]
   
3. Chuck Love - Still Funky (Acid Noodle remix) [Om]
   
4. Iz & Diz - Magnificent (Justin Martin's No Heart & Soul remix) [Om]
   
5. Ben Mono - Beatbox (Jesse Rose remix) [Compost Records]
   
6. Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler (Jesse Rose remix) [Wichita]
   
7. Dragonette - I Get Around (Van She vocal mix) [Mercury]

The mix can be downloaded directly from here or you can tune in/subscribe to get the past and present casts:
feed://www.gcast.com/u/haszari/main.xml

GCast are doing the hosting, and don't insert ads. Their interface is extremely rudimentary and it seemed to lose my tracklist/show description. Still, debatably better than silly ads and semi-social networking which is what you get at podshow.

Also I am playing this Friday and Saturday, at Bath St and Pop, so it's going to be a big weekend what with lots of people graduating.




Acknowledgements to mishtanegativity for collecting the Denon, fiddling with it and verifying its integrity for me, as well as storing it for a lil while.

Impromptuality

Well.. "this goes out, to all my family & friends/when times were hard/you were there"...

Last night I for the first time had a DJ booking tanglup and it turned out I wasn't playing at Pop. Ah well, 'sall good, cos moments before I was lamenting the fact that I wasn't able to check out Trillion (AKA Jody from Dark Tower's new band The Incredible Braking Wheel.

So that was all damn fine, country-tinged roots rock urban guerilla protest stylez, and I recommend you click the above links and friend em, and check the music, and go see em when they're in your town.

AND THEN Ellamental Anakissed, possibly spurred on by the soundz, had the bold idea to take over the fairly idle at that moment Bath St. So off marched SoNic Smith to liaise with the always genial staff at Bath St. Needless to say, they were amenable, so within 20 minutes we (and when I say we I mean Nic) had rousted 20+ people from the streetz and other more rebutable places and transformed Bath St into an impromptu rave!

Yea for emergency beat action! It went on for a couple of hours, and there was some bloody impressive dancefloor, and half way thru the smoke machine started up, boosting the atmos sufficiently.

So cheers all, see yer tonight for part 2/3.

Favourite Films of 2007

Hi everyone.

This is my first blog post. The big joke about blogging is that people who
are otherwise perfectly capable of getting a real job (ie one that
pays) spend hours of their own time working for free. It doesn't make
a lot of sense until you realise that its all just a load of
advertising - which is exactly what this post is. My favourite films
from 2007! Don't take my word for it - rent or buy the DVD today!

Now I didn't pay to see any of these but I do recommend them. If
anyone wants a lengthier and more serious appraisal of the films I've
looked at, all the year's reviews are available at critic.co.nz. Some
from me and some from the other good people that I organised in my
capacity as Critic Film Ed. Some interviews too. Worth a look.

No particular order:

1. Zodiac (Dir. David Fincher)
Is this movie about obsessives or by obsessives? Maybe for obsessives since
this is the only film I went to see twice this year. Not as dark as you
might think, just very detailed with great characters and unflashy
but pitch-perfect direction. Closer to Scorcese than say, Ferrara, which is a turnaround for Fincher.

2. Black Book (Dir. Paul Verhoeven)
An absolute riot of sex, violence and backstabbing. Its ridiculously
entertaining and quite scandalous - "good" Nazis and the Dutch
resistance behaving badly.

3. Little Children (Dir. Todd Field)
Funny and dark and sad. Like real life only with paedophiles. Did you
know that Todd Field was the piano player in Eyes Wide Shut? (Thanks
imdb.com).
Shades of Kubrick here, the direction is very cool and controlled.

4. Day Watch (Dir. Timur Bekmambetov)
Who knows what the hell this movie about. It's quite convoluted but
smart enough not to take itself too seriously. Ideas, ideas, ideas. Maybe too
many but it looks fantastic. A genuinely original vampire film. You
don't need to see the first movie Nightwatch but, you know, it helps.

5. Transformers (Dir. Michael Bay)
Say what you like about Bay but he knows how to make 'em big. Apart
from the visuals which are pretty much state-of-the-art, he manages to
make it come together storywise. Spielberg's influence is pretty apparent in all
that boyhood fantasy stuff. Shia LaBeouf will go far and adds a lot to
the film. Not quite Close Encounters but what is?

6. Golden Door (Dir. Emanuele Crialese)
I probably watched about 50 festival films this year. This was one of
those pleasant surprises. Check out the festival site for more info
(http://nzff.telecom.co.nz) but it's basically an dirt-poor family of
Italian hicks coming to America in in the 1800s. The film never
actually goes beyond US Immigration control but you'll learn a lot
about what makes America tick from this - it's a real eye-opener.
(Scorcese was involved in production which makes a lot of sense).

8. Blades of Glory (Dirs. Josh Gordon, Will Speck)
Funny, funny, funny. High-concept certainly but it's not a bad concept
and it's got enough stupidity and wrongness to drown that out anyway. Heder and
Ferrell are fire and ice, baby.

9. Exiled (Dir. Johnnie To)
I was expected something along the lines of early John Woo but this
was something else entirely. There's a political element to the film which I don't really
understand but for me it was about a bunch of losers - an interesting
take on the gangster genre which borrows a lot from the revisionist
western. (Actually there seemed to be a lot of
films about losers this year - Half Nelson, Eagle vs Shark, Perfume
etc).

10. Control (Dir. Anton Corbijn)
I highly recommend Corbijn's music video collection although he is
probably best known as a photographer. He's a perfect choice for
director (since he knew the band quite well) and he does a great job
in his first feature. Don't let the black and white put you off, the ending is obviously sad
but the material is also quite funny at times. (After a long search I
have concluded that Corbijn never worked with New Order on a music
video which I find strange).

Also:
Pan's Labyrinth: didn't hit me quite as hard as others but very good nonetheless
Science of Sleep: I saw it last year. Probably my best review - i had
to fill half a page so i let loose.
Black Snake Moan: lots of energy but what is this film trying to say?
(read Sight & Sound for some ideas)
Eastern Promises: because I just saw it and I had already written the
list. Very very good.

I missed these and it pisses me off:
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts
Inland Empire
Death Proof (coming out this week!)

Have a nice XXXmas everyone!
You have been enchanted...

Pop Quiz

What is the current 'so-hot-right-now' electro house description?

a. dirty
b. chunky
c. indie
d. punk

What are the nicknames of Justice dj duo Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay?
a. Tom and Jerry
b. The Rock and The Terminator
c. Rhythm and Vines
d. The Moustache and The Chinese Boy

Which Rihanna 'Umbrella' remix was played by Dick 'Majik' Johnson at Bath St on Friday night?

a. Vandalism
b. The Mint Chicks
c. Diplo
d. None of the above

Which band is considered the most successful French electro house collaboration of all time?

a. Alloy Mental
b. Daft Punk
c. Groove Armada
d. Dimitri from Paris

Who played the voice of Megatron in the 2007 Transformers movie?

a. Peter Cullen
b. Laurence Fishburne
c. Hugo Weaving
d. James Earl Jones

Needs more lists

Three respectable ways to die:

1. After being rescued from the sea by a navy cutter, making witty and biting comments about the sexual orientation of navy personnel until they throw you back overboard. ‘Eye of the Tiger’ plays in the background on the ships announcement system.


2. Trying to stop a bar fight between a unicorn and a dolphin solely in an attempt to impress mother nature and perhaps score her later that night.


3. Getting blown up by your own TNT while trying to catch that pesky roadrunner.

lend a hand + get down + IQ tests

This is more of a catchup/keepitmoving/six cents post.

Hype Machine will change if we all leave our browsers open

More importantly, haszaristwocents is gonna deliver a stack of clicks that way given our massive readership. Click on this and leave the browser open and repeat for all browsers/machines you can find.

Mo' Mentum at Bath St with Haszari

I'm playing at Bath St this friday, short notice, but very exciting all the same. It's all me so it's gonna be self indulgent but you like what I like so should be a massive night.


Mo' Mentum @ Bath St Friday 19th Oct

IQ tests are bad

There was an article in The Listener about IQ tests recently. This got me all fired up as all mention of IQ does, ya know, everyone knows that any concept of IQ has to be totally flawed and probably very culture specific.

Anyway I didn't end up with a coherent enough opinion to post about it (tho I really wanted to!), but the point of this 1/3rd post is who to blame regarding IQ silliness:

1. the media, for occasionally misreporting IQ related findings and theories
2. IQ researchers, for even bothering to try and develop the concept of IQ as reliable and relevant

So, I ask ya, what's your opinion? Comment back.

$2 down the toilet

Last weekend I indulged in an evening out and about on the town, popping into a few of my favourite haunts for a toast here and a dance there, and discovered on a visit to the powder room, someone had dropped $2 down the toilet. This sparked a stimulating discussion about for how much money one would stick their hand down a bar toilet. $50 was the call.

In a recent OUSA pub safety review, unfortunately limited to only those establishments in North Dunedin, it was discovered that the general loo situation here is somewhat disturbing. I would tend to endorse this statement; & this particular powder room has always been a pet peeve of mine, ever since the door got pulled off its rails leaving distinct lack of privacy. Being a private kind of girl I kicked it rather forcibly back onto its rails.
See I always knew those martial aerobics classes would come in handy.

On an alternative note, it would really make my night if bar staff and door staff please know the name of your dj. Now that the fink has finally folded, we have no regular tangible gig guide. We’re not all ignorant teeny bopper slappers, some of us are truly there for the music.
& I’m not talking about the latest remix of total eclipse of the heart.