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Acid Man | May 02, 2008 11:57

I suppose it's a bit importune to be remembering Albert Hofmann, the "father of LSD", who passed away at the age of 102 this week, given today's headlines, but what the hell.

I think I'm being honest in saying that LSD never did me any harm. Indeed, I think that the afternoon I spent on acid at the Tate Gallery many years ago opened me up to art from the Impressionists onwards in a way that has positively enhanced my life since. (NB: It still didn't reveal to me anything about why I should like J.M.W. Turner. That room was unfriendly to me.) But I'm odd like that.

Hofmann, who was also the first to synthesise psilocybin, is reported to have died chuffed that the use of LSD in psychotherapy research had been returned to respectability.

A blogger on the Houston Chronicle's site has video and audio remembrances.

And Erowid, as you might expect, has a copious vault of Hofmann material, including, remarkably, a digitised collection of his 4000-odd LSD related papers.

Meanwhile, the Herald's Your Views on the topic of the P scourge was divided, as usual, between a surprisingly large cohort of liberalisers and the get-tough crowd. In the case of that particular phenomenon, I'm not sure either prescription fits.

The only drug on offer at the New Zealand Music Month launch last night was Hennessey. The sponsor's product was mixed into three different cocktails, all of them very drinkable, but actually tasted best on its own. Perhaps because of the premium nature of the drinks, the invite list veered sharply towards the respectable (yes, that was me, in my TV suit). Tonight's 10-band mystery showcase will doubtless be a bit more rock 'n' roll.

I do wish people would be a bit more relaxed about Music Month. It is what it is, it can be quite fun and sponsors pick up a fair bit of the tab. I can't really see the point of Simon Sweetman's blog or the Dom Post's gotcha story this morning.

Meanwhile, I wonder how many Aussie musicians got hooked into their industry's new anti "downloading" video under the impression that it was something else altogether …

PS: Go and check out the three episodes to screen so far of New Artland. It's a cool idea, and one that deserves an audience.

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The Art of the Interview | May 01, 2008 10:22

This week's Media7 is a lively affair -- as in: I couldn't shut the buggers up -- with Sean Plunket, Amanda Millar and Jim Tucker discussing the art of the interview.

I've also negotiated permission for the Newsmash section to be made available -- there had been some concern about intellectual property issues with the clips we excerpt, but I think it's pretty clearly fair use for review purposes. It's there in the first part of the programme.

The show is available on TVNZ ondemand, the podcast and as Windows Media clips on the main TVNZ site. And of course, in embeddable form on our YouTube channel.

See also: the Media7 blog, which includes links to several of the interviews we discussed and a statement by Listener editor Pamela Stirling on the Eco-logic business.

The NZOnscreen project, which is working towards the launch of an unprecedented online archive and showcase of New Zealand screen culture, now has a blog. I'm on the trust board overseeing the initiative.

I've said so many nice things about Freeview lately that it seems only fair to point out one area where Freeview will struggle against Sky -- the PVR end of the market. We still haven't really got comfortable with the Topfield satellite Freeview PVR we're using -- or, rather, not using all that often because the MySky a much better consumer device. I can see why Freeview doesn't want to put these on the market until it has done some work on usability.

Meanwhile, we still use the Freeview HD terrestrial box for actually watching broadcast TV, because the sound and picture it provides is so superior.

Sky is hinting that it will launch its own HD services in July. There are no details yet about pricing, but I suspect the box will look a lot like the Sky HD decoder available in Britain. That recently won a Gadget Show PVR shootout against Virgin Media and Tiscali devices -- on the basis, of course, of its great usability. Third-party producers who want to catch up with Sky could start by making better remote controls.

Fevered speculation that the forthcoming 3G iPhone will be able to switch seamlessly between WiFi, 3G and WiMax networks. It'll also be smaller and lighter, through the use of new plastics. So your how-cool-am-I first-gen iPhone will look like a bloody brick in two months' time! Ha!

See also the Listener column I wrote on the grooviness crisis looming if Telecom gets the iPhone contract for New Zealand.

Nic Wise has put a lot of work into a blog post examining the true viability of flat-rate (ie: no data cap) broadband internet and concludes that for international traffic "flat rate is a sham", but national data should be free.

And finally, we had hundreds of entries for the Portishead album giveaway. And , thanks to Random.org, the winners have been drawn. They are Gavo McEwen, Paul Caples, Grant Stone, Danyl Mclauchlan and Lhizz Browne. Congratulations to the winners. And now the rest of you can go and buy the thing …

PS: It turns out that the top Google result for "ian wishart absolute power" is now our own David Haywood's most excellent re-imagining of the book. You might wish to reward David's post with your own dose of linkylove.

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Things To Do | Apr 29, 2008 11:31

It's quite clever on the part of Residents Action Movement to have latched onto the removal of GST from food products as part of its move to launch on the national stage. But the idea itself is completely daft.

Many other countries have chosen not to apply their GST-style taxes to some or all foodstuffs, but that's typically more a nod to social sentiment than practicality, consistency or effectiveness.

Who'd bet against the 12.5% saving on food being at least partially swallowed up by increased margins, or simply more price rises of the kind we're already seeing? The cost, meanwhile, would be both in the simplicity and relative ease of compliance in the system we have, and in more than two billion dollars in government revenue. Critically, such a policy would benefit relatively well-off people who spend more money on food -- that'll be me -- far more than the poor people RAM claims to represent.

The more straightforward solution -- although it may not be any more politically palatable in an election year where the middle class feels it's struggling too -- is to increase the household incomes of the poorest families, both through the device of the minimum wage and, if not raise benefit levels per se, bump up family support payments.

Steve Pierson at the Standard has a more developed line of thinking on the issue.

It's unlikely that Labour will take up all the recommendations of the Child Poverty Action Group. Labour has actually achieved genuine movement on child poverty, and may be feeling it has missed its chance to do more (you may imagine the political furore when benefit increases are followed by what seems like an inevitable rise in unemployment as the year proceeds) but with nearly a quarter of New Zealand children relying on fixed benefits, the future seems to demand that something be done.

Meanwhile, more Wishartery over at Poneke for those of you with an interest in logical gymnastics.

And, finally, Universal Music has kindly provided us with five copies of the new Portishead album to give away. If you'd like to go in the draw, hit "reply" and email me with "Portishead" in the subject line. I'll draw the winners first thing tomorrow morning.

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Shihad are like the All Blacks, only more reliable | Apr 27, 2008 14:29

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I can't say what kind of offering the weather gods might have extracted from Homegrown's promoters on Saturday, but it was probably worth it. The festival's use of the Wellington waterfront mixed public and private space in a way that was both ambitious and ingenious, but it would have been tricky on a foul day. But while most of the country got wind and rain, Wellington was sunny and still. Even the forecast evening showers failed to arrive.

Even at such a well-managed event, the combination of large crowds of young people, alcohol and proximity to water might still have produced something sour (unlike the Big Day Out, where it is hard to get a drink let alone drunk, all Homegrown's stages were licensed areas and it even had a booze sponsor). But that didn't happen either.

Our group of grown-ups and excited teenage girlies convened early at the indie stage for Coshercot Honeys, who weren't quite as good as when I saw them recently at the King's Arms -- the shed needed a few more bodies to soak up the sound -- but got the girls dancing and cheering. The great goodwill of the crowds was a feature of the day.

From there, we walked over to the roots tent for Ladi6, who, with her long-awaited album almost completed, was in cracking form. The show mixed soul, reggae and old-school hip-hop (I kept thinking of Boogie Down Productions). Ladi was accompanied, of course, by DJ Parks (is there another DJ in the world who sings backing vocals like Parks does?) and, for about half the set, by her girl Silver from South Auckland. My companions thought she could have sung more and rapped less, but I really dug it.

So, it seemed, did Trevor Mallard, who was there with his partner. He smiled a little when a pungent cloud of marijuana smoke drifted his way, and tapped his foot. Literally. Right foot, tapping. I think Labour needs some more ministers who can dance …

There followed a fallow period of Kiwi Hit Disc bands, so we took a break at Leuven and our hotel room, and returned into time for So So Modern, who were brilliant. Do you call it ironica? Whatever, it was a thrilling collision of influences, culminating in 10-minute rave-up that sounded like a potted history of the last 30 years' popular music.

I was less convinced by the very loud Die Die Die. They had their moments, but they also made me feel ill, so I wandered off to have a look at the rest of the site and, happily, caught the breakdancing semi-finals, where the winners had their boys lined up to cheer and the losers got served.

It was a great day for people-watching. We were in fits over some of the snatches of conversation we heard as we went from one local to another. A young man strode past shouting something in German about seeing the Feelers into his mobile phone. One young woman loudly assured her friend that "you guys are gonna have amazing sex tonight!". And, of course, there was the theme-dressing. The Sevens have a lot to answer for …

Some of the better comedy was to be had in watching the Jim Beam girls totter around in high-heels, Stetsons, crop-tops and tight white jeans with the sponsor's logo across the butt. I'm sure some of them were actually funding their degrees and will one day being running the country as policy analysts, but the effect was a kind of miniature stupid-fest.

"Why don't you and Kerry dress like that?" I asked my darling.

"Because we use our brains for good," she replied.

"And they," I observed, "use their arses for advertising."

"You could say," she said, "that they pay for things with their butts."

And to add to the everything-going-on-at-once feel of the afternoon, about a thousands Chinese students marched past on their way to Te Papa, carrying large national flags.

As it grew dark, the Phoenix Foundation took things down a notch in the indie shed, playing a loose, funny, lovely set that made everyone happy, to be followed by The Checks, who seem so mature and assured these days. I ducked out again to find the 10 metre square plinth where the breakdancing had been now packed with dancers while a young blonde woman with an MC played a bangin' house set. It was funny, and fun

The electronic stage wasn't really to our tastes for much of the day -- it seemed to be full of people who'd saved up their party pills -- but I made a solo expedition to catch some of Concord Dawn's set. It was exactly as you'd expect: absolutely rammed with people dancing a million miles an hour.

I found myself thinking through the day that The Mint Chicks are the Clean of their era. A parade of young bands playing freaky, intense, rhythmic, punk pop have risen in their wake. But they didn't seem to be quite on form in their headline set, so I ducked around to the rock stage, which we'd avoided all day on the basis that nearly all the bands were shit, and that it was likely to be harbouring all the munters.

I walked in the room just as Shihad eased into 'Pacifier' and then belted through 'My Mind's Sedate'. There was hand-waving and dancing and singing along and testifying. And fair enough too: there was twice as much production as any of the other stages and Shihad were using all of it.

The new material leans towards the power ballad: I liked 'One Will Hear the Other', not so much the others. But they were brilliant, as they nearly always are, and finished up with a thunderous 'You Again'. Shihad are like the All Blacks, only more reliable.

By the time they were done, the other stages were packing down and the crowds were drifting up to Courtenay Place. Any thought of carrying on the evening was put to rest. We were all knackered; a bunch of fortysomethings clutching aching backs and resting tired feet (concrete floors with matting on them are still concrete floors). I needed to sleep, a lot.

Everyone involved with this event, including the lead sponsor, Vodafone, deserves a pat on the back. For a festival of entirely local acts to sell out three weeks in advance, be staged in such an unconventional way, and come off so well, is no mean feat. Next year's festival could certainly do with better production in the indie and electronic stages, but that's quibbling. I suspect this is now a permanent part of the Wellington summer. And if so, those weather gods can probably extract any price they please.

PS: Len Lye's water wand thing cranked up as we walked past during the evening. It's a kind of extended frolic with line and space; quite entrancing. My darling got a QuickTime movie. And there are some pictures by deadpossum in the gallery for this post. As you can see, there wasn't a lot of light …

PPS: The Dom Post's report says Ladi6 got a cheer when she announced she'd just moved to Island Bay. That was Lyall Bay, y'all. What's it coming to when an Aucklander has to point that out?

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