Author Archive
June 15, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Poem: Let’s Talk Telesphoto Lenses…
Life’s too short to give a shit what anyone else thinks of your taste. Your find your club on the internet and someone will accept you – if the friend you’ve never actually met in real life is suddenly affronted that you actually like Enya or WHAM or big band music from the 1930s and […]
June 14, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Playlist: Shut Up And Listen
Time for another playlist. I made this one a few days back – 40 songs, just under three hours of music. No real theme here, just a bunch of songs I like and thought might sound good altogether. That’s it. But I wanted to share it around – in case anyone else liked what they […]
June 14, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Lisa Gerrard & Jules Maxwell: Burn
Lisa Gerrard & Jules Maxwell Burn Atlantic Curve / Schubert Music Europe gmbh There is a sound Lisa Gerrard has been mining across some 40 years now – it’s there in solo albums, soundtrack compositions and collaborations and of course most tellingly, it’s been at the heard of Dead Can Dance albums. The sound is […]
June 14, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
The Podcast You Need If You Love Books About Music
If you’re anything like me – and we’re probably both praying to our gods now for that to not be the case – you hunt out podcasts to match your interests. There are about 100 million podcasts today. That number will probably double next month. Some seem to stop quicker than they ever started. And […]
June 14, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Roger McGough Had Done Enough – And Long Before He Wrote A Poem To Save My Life
What I said was that I’d first read the poem when I was about 15. And had loved it ever since. Had thought about it – and often – for nearly 30 years. And because that clearly wasn’t lofty enough I added that the poem, this one poem, was in fact a guiding light. I […]
June 14, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Gig Review: The Nathan Haines Octet (June 12, Wellington)
The Nathan Haines Octet Opera House, Wellington, 8pm Saturday, June 12 Headlining this year’s Jazz Festival The Nathan Haines Octet – and, yes, we all know how lucky we are to be seeing anything in this climate, so no issues about an all-local line-up for this year’s festival, but also Nathan Haines is an internationally […]
June 14, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Poem: Had Baby Haiku
efficiency and poetry met and fucked had baby haiku
June 13, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Hélène Grimaud: The Messenger
Hélène Grimaud The Messenger Deutsche Grammophon French pianist Hélène Grimaud is a risk-taker and a concept-maker, creating albums that pull from different styles and eras, and push into place new understandings, new beginnings even – here, with The Messenger she seeks to compare and contrast Mozart with the contemporary classical composer Valentyn Silvestrov.
June 13, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Poem: The Luck Of The Draw
Grant Lee Buffalo released two great albums Fuzzy and Mighty Joe Moon. They were released in 1993 and 1994. I caught up with them a few years later, a new friend loaned me the albums – I returned the favour by giving her a copy of The Cat Inside by William S. Burroughs and an […]
June 13, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Gig Review: Michael Houstoun and The Rodger Fox Big Band ft. Erna Ferry (June 12, Wellington)
Michael Houstoun and The Rodger Fox Big Band ft. Erna Ferry Opera House, Wellington, 2pm Saturday, June 12 The once unlikely pairing of classical pianist Michael Houstoun and big-band stalwart Rodger Fox is now an annual event. They’ve even sewn up the same slot too – an afternoon show and always to a packed house. […]
June 12, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
When In Doubt, OST!
There aren’t many rules in our house – but a big one is to not have the music too loud unless we all agree, unless it’s party time, unless I’m in the house alone. And to not have competing sounds – no music blasting in one room with a TV still on somewhere else, all […]
June 11, 2021 by Simon Sweetman