Internet rants, raves, drama, and the like.

can’t help myself but count the flaws

It’s the middle of the night and I’m meant to wake up in less than 6 hours, so this is just typical of me, but I have an urge to share and so here goes.

ONE: I wrote this poem last week called “in place of a love letter”, so please go read it and let me know what you think.

TWO: I finally got two rolls of colour films developed yesterday (man that was expensive!) and I’ll start to slowly post them up, but here are two of my favourites:


Sunday Ritual #1 – taken on Kodak UltraMax 400 colour film; self-timer, Nikon F3.


Sunday Ritual #2 – taken on Kodak UltraMax 400 colour film; self-timer, Nikon F3.

THREE: PLAYLIST. The main thing about this playlist is that I will be seeing 7/9 artists below next January at Laneway Festival. So, hell yes, yes please! This is definitely one of my favourite playlists that I’ve made so far, even if I say so myself.

 1. Tyrant Destroyed – Twin Shadow
I love this guy’s music, and more importantly, his lyrics. I sound like such a bitch, but do you know how rare it is to find an artist to have decent music and lyrics? I guess that’s mostly what it takes for a band to be in my “top” list – amazing sound AND lyrics. I’ve been listening to his album on repeat and repeat and repeat. I seriously just can’t stop listening. This is an amazing album opener, so I thought it’d be a good place to start a playlist.

2. Still Life – The Horrors
I’ve already seen The Horrors before, last year, but I know that next year will be better. Last time, I was stuck in the photo pit (chasing these photos, by the way) and so I just didn’t really get the chance to soak them in completely, since I was rushing around the Big Day Out like a madwoman on a tight schedule. Plus, with a new album under their belt this year, I’m curious to see what the mix of their set will be – how much older stuff they’ll play, and if so, which songs. For some reason, this song reminds me of The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony. It’s a key thing, probably.

3. Asterisk – M83
Was saying to the boy the other day about how I can’t believe I ever fell out with M83. I guess it was during a time of my life where I needed something livelier – less shoegaze, post-rock sounding, I suppose. But obviously I’ve fallen back in love with them, and this will always be one of the top songs for me – it’s such an in-your-face contrast to the rest of this album, I love it. Might want to turn your speakers down if you don’t want a fright though.

4. All Alone – Toro Y Moi
Another song off Toro Y Moi’s latest EP was featured on my last playlist a while back, but I just love this EP too much. I seriously hope that he plays this EP in its entirety when I see him. It’s the perfect getting-tipsy-off-beer-and-dancing song for a summer music festival. Seriously, seriously digging this shit. If anyone comes up to Auckland for it and sees some girl in blue Docs jivin’ to him, that’ll be me.

5. Go Outside – Cults
This link goes to the MTV-made video, so the grand intro isn’t actually part of this song, but the video is just too cute, so watch it! It features Dave Franco (brother of possibly if not my only celebrity/actor-crush-figure, James Franco) and Emma Roberts (an actress in her own right, I suppose – ahem – aka Julia Roberts’ niece). She’s three months older than me, but I swear, she looks so young! Or maybe I just look old. Crap. Anyway, it’s an adorable song as well, and I can’t wait to see Cults either.

6. Broken – Disco Inferno
Definitely not seeing Disco Inferno next year (in case you didn’t know, their first album was released the year I was born), but it’s a nice song nonetheless. And very “Amanda-ish”, as the boy would say.

7. Funeral Day – The Mint Chicks
Sadly The Mint Chicks aren’t about to play together again any time soon (as far as I’m aware), but Kody and Michael have teamed up with Bic Runga to form Opossom who are playing at Laneway, so that shall be an eye-opener, as usual. I got nostalgic whilst driving home with the boy from uni today and put on the Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No! album and instantly felt like I was 16 again. All those nights spent quoting the Mint Chicks in txt messages, the high school years of unrequited love, teenage angst, and going along to their shows just to thrash about, and hope like hell that Kody doesn’t fall of the latest stack of PAs or railings that he’s decided to climb. Ahh… good times. By the way, even though it’s 5 years old, I still love this album to death, so if anyone wants to listen to it, the whole thing can be streamed from here.

8. Within and Without – Washed Out
I wonder what on earth Ernest Greene will play at Laneway. I don’t care. He’ll be in the afternoon rather than night – most likely – and hopefully I will be experiencing a nice relaxed buzz with my favourite hand holder tightly holding onto me. I find Washed Out’s real name funny – Ernest Greene just sounds like… such a great blank and neutral sounding pseudonym to publish a book under, if you know what I mean? It’s even more amusing to me because my English students are revising The Importance of Being Ernest for their external Cambridge exams at the moment.

9. Crystalline – Bjork
THIS. SONG. BLOWS. MY. MIND. SO. HARD. The drum(machine) breakdown at the end is like an ear orgasm. No, multiple. I just wished that it was drawn out longer, but I guess this way it’s not over done. Ahhhh, why couldn’t I have seen Bjork now rather than all those years ago when she was just a visual and sonic spectacular, rather than something I actively listened to and vaguely understood? Wasted youth, I say. I’d say the same about seeing Sonic Youth as well, if I had just seen them even 6 months later, the experience would be completely different. It’s funny how these things work.

I think that with the best bands and artists, seeing them live always makes me fall in love with the more. Even if I already adore their music already. Now how to become one of them?

Make it long, make it last forever, Make it cruel, just make me laugh

Let me first get your attention by showing you a cute picture of my very affectionate cat:

Now, that that has succeeded, I can insert a long entry below. So unless you’ve been living under a rock, or not very active online, you would have noticed a trend in the phrase “first world problems”. It’s a Twitter and Facebook tag, too. Anyway, that’s what I had today – a first world problem. I feel like such a brat saying this, for having even had this “dilemma” in the first place – it’s about choosing between two pairs of shoes for the law ball, by the way. I just felt like, oh my god, think of the people struggling to pay bills, and I’m struggling to decide between sexy-hottt-leather or subtle-preeetty-suede?! so yeah, I basically felt like an idiot in my utter indecision. I’ve “decided” for now, but tomorrow I will probably struggle with following my decision through. Anyway, the main thing is – I hate this phrase, “first world problems” – it’s so true, and yet, so crude! It’s especially bad when people misuse or overuse it, just like how the whole “fml” thing exploded some years back. I don’t know… I guess it just makes me feel like we are all a bit pathetic. It’s like how you can always find people in worse off positions than yourself, so why invalidate whatever problems you may have? Be it if you burnt your hand baking, or can’t find a sober driver, or like me at the moment, can’t decide between two hot pairs of shoes?

On the topic of shoes, I don’t know how on earth I developed a “shoe thing” – all I know is that it began with my aqua blue patent Doc Martens last year, then expanded onto Ksubi boots and then… well it all went downhill from there…

And a warning for the next post – I love love love Bloc Party and haven’t been able to take this song off repeat this week. It’s an oldie but a goodie – The Prayer SOOO applicable and relevant right now. More on that later!

But I’ve been waiting too long to give this up. The more I see I understand… But sometimes I still need you

I’m surprised that I’m not hallucinating by now, because I’ve had very little sleep all week, and only had 3.5 hours of sleep last night. It’s a bit stupid that I stayed up so late working on my transcription test which was at noon, but I had spent most of yesterday with my ring finger in a mug of cold water since I accidentally got a burn blister from cooking (a tiny fragment of an eggshell!!! who knew those things got so hot so fast?!). It was made more difficult by the fact that I had to change all my fingering for slides and triplets and all a bunch of crap, as well as trying to play up to speed in the first place. Argh.

That said, I know it sounds even more retarded that I’m not in bed asleep already – and trust me, I dreamed of doing so, all day, but I have so much stuff on my mind that it just doesn’t want to rest. I just sat for an hour in bed writing a reply letter to one of my best friends abroad instead. See, that’s the funny thing about people being abroad – they will eventually come back. Even if it’s just for a short visit. There are two instances where this very subject is gnawing away at my mind right now: the former, being very close friends (see below), whom I wish would be back for longer so I could spend some decent quality time with; and the latter, being someone who I perhaps might not know well (or at all), who I dread having to come across one day.

The problem with having a blog that is read by people I know offline is that most of the time, I can’t just say things straight up. I sometimes miss the anonymity of when my blog was little more than chunks of (mostly neglected and unread) text that I could say anything and everything in. The upside was that I didn’t have to censor much. But the obvious downside was that I hardly had any readers and so rarely got the thought-provoking sort of response that I was looking for anyway. Ahh, forever a blogger’s dilemma.

For now, this was my evening. My friend Raymond held a musical soirée at the iconic Sly’s Pianos in Newmarket, as he was passing through on his way to Wellington for some work with the NZSO. All I can really say is that listening to him made me really miss the feel of playing classical piano. The very particular texture and timbre that such black and white keys deliver is completely incomparable to the raw and rugged experience which a bass brings… especially that of an upright. My fingertips feel like they’re on fire – to which, of course, my bass teacher shows his approval of the fact that I’m playing more and more. They hurt so much that it felt like I was inducing yet another burn blister when I ate fries at the bar with my hands earlier.

I’m always humbled by how amazing all my friends are. Truly.




Later, at Mac’s Brewbar on Nuffield Street. I love the decor in this place.


I swear I didn’t “conveniently” not have any money with me.


His & Hers: Mac’s Black & Great White beer. Previously, Sassy Red & Hops Rocker.

What their beer menu looked like. I have no idea how the quality of these two photos are so… shoddy. Oh welllll.

I can’t wait until Easter break, because I’d really like to catch up with my old piano teacher. We had meant to get together over summer, but that never got organised in the end. But better late than never! I really miss all our late-night piano lessons filled with laughter, musical revelations and anecdotes. I think anecdotes are possibly every teacher’s best friend.

http://www.slyspianos.co.nz/

PIXXY.CO.NZ

I am so happy to announce that, after sleepless nights of battling with resizing photos, digging out old albums and trawling through then endless folders of my photos, I’m officially launching
PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ!

Whilst in the process, I found photos that I had long forgotten about, prime examples being:

Alex Freer, Artisan Guns Hearts EP Release. I remember squinting like a mofo to get the perfect focal point. Auto-focus is useless at gigs!

Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, Taipei, 2010.

Taken on Kodak Colour Reversal film with a Nikon F3, early 2008.

I wrote full lyrics for a song the other night, of which I’m quite proud, but I’m afraid this post is just too littered with random photos to give it any justice if I were to add it to the end. Here’s a compilation of last Wednesday night:

– Sinead’s first time driving into town
– Lottie debuting a dress I’ve been harassing her to wear for months and months
– Me scrambling to shower and get dressed after some very hot and sweaty hockey games. Luckily I saw no blood that night.
– Highlight of the night: watching 5 boys fail miserably at flat tire-changing attempts in the McDonald’s carpark! We watched for about half an hour whilst pigging out, then left in fits of girly giggles.
– Charlotte’s anchor deserved to be posted on its own at the bottom!

Don’t for get to visit PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ PIXXY.CO.NZ!

Oh, and how could I forget? Hats off to Dan Carter + Le Bron James shot 3 consecutive 3 pointers within a minute and a half against the Clippers today + my cat stole my side of the bed…

I’m a thief, you can tell by my fingers

It’s almost 2am, for what seems like the thousandth day in a row. I’m in dire need of sleep. I don’t think I’ve slept before 2am for over two weeks and it’s getting ridiculous. My body doesn’t understand what keeps my mind awake so late into the best hours of the twenty-four.

First period A Level English was turbulent this morning. I would have said that I don’t remember the last time I felt so upset via txt/phone messages, except just then I recalled a certain psychotic ex-boyfriend. Regardless, an issue arose which I honestly should have thought through carefully – I mean for goodness sake my mother’s a photographer, I should know better than to be the source to two publications’ photos at the same concert. Sure, I was approached by the band in regards to the second one, but I should have known better. Talk about overwhelmed. The rest of gig pics are here though.

Thankfully that’s behind me now, and I have one last weekend to enjoy with the imminent thought of exams and auditions and tournament week hanging over my head; I don’t think that thoroughly qualifies as “enjoy” except I plan on getting mildly intoxicated enough at a gig I’m photographing this coming Saturday. I would plug it and stick up a poster and all… but no one locally relevant reads my blog except for the odd friend so what’s the point?

Anyway, I’m up here at Cheese on Toast now:

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