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July 4, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

Five Albums I’m Loving Right Now: Nathan Ford

Nathan Ford is a Wellington-based music writer who has written for Shindig! and Real Groove print magazines and various websites. In 2009 he founded The Active Listener, an online magazine with an emphasis on psychedelia – new and old. As well as contributing reviews to the Active Listener, he acts as editor/herder to a growing team of writers from the U.K, U.S.A and Canada, and manages Active Listener Records, a digital label that highlights the music of artists featured on the Active Listener. Here are five albums he’s loving right now… Read More »

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June 16, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

Five Albums I’m Loving Right Now: Brent Hodge

Brent Hodge started his film directing career with CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) directing TV documentaries including Leo Nominated Winning America and What Happens Next about Canadian singer Dan Mangan. Hodge recently won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Non Fiction Online Content. Hodge’s first feature length documentary A Brony Tale got its world debut at Tribeca Film Festival and is being distributed by Morgan Spurlock and has a theatrical release in July 2014.Hodge has also worked with National Geographic, National Film Board of Canada, Discovery Canada, and OLN Network and has done web video content for McDonalds, GAP, Samsung, TIME Magazine, and Uber. Brent runs his own company Hodgee Films which focuses on video content for agencies, tech start-ups, travel documentaries, and filming live events around the world. Here are five albums he’s loving right now… Read More »

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June 8, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

Five Albums I’m Loving Right Now: Sinatra Frank

Sinatra Frank is an Auckland musician/artist/director/photographer/rabbit-wrangler. Here are five albums she’s loving right now…

I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel like it’s becoming harder and harder to love whole albums nowadays, I’m not sure whether it’s the bands that have the ADD or me but where I used to listen from start to finish, now I flick, graze. If something doesn’t grab me in ten, twenty seconds I skip. I listen to tracks, playlists, not albums. So when Simon asked me to write this I was a bit perplexed really as to what five whole albums I could claim to be loving right now. It was tricky. Also if I’m being honest I’ve only been listening to my music of late because I’ve been recording and you can’t very well put your own music as an album you’re loving without seeming like a total big dick. So I had listen to some music. If nothing else it was good to get out of my own doom and gloom sounds for a while and listen to others’…
Thanks Simon. Read More »

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April 27, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

Five Albums I’m Loving Right Now: Graham Reid

Graham Reid is a freelance writer, journalist and author of two award-winning travel books. He lectures part-time at the University of Auckland’s School of Music and hosts his own music/arts/travel website www.elsewhere.co.nz Here are five albums he’s loving right now (aside from those under Favourite Five Recent CDs at Elsewhere)…

1 – The 5.6.7.8’s, Bomb the Rocks – Early Days Singles: I’ve always loved reductive garageband rock like Blue Cheer, Dead Moon, The Cramps etc and this double vinyl collection of ridiculously goodtime rock’n’roll, surf rock and punk rock by these almost legendary Japanese women leapt into my hand on Record Store Day. After one side you almost feel you’ve had enough of English mangled beyond comprehension but then another side beckons and away you go again. Their version of Long Tall Sally should be sent to code breakers to see if they can figure out what they are singing. It’s at least three songs in one, with the bassline from Taxman at one point . . . if you can hear it. Read More »

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April 21, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

Five Albums I’m Loving Right Now: THUNDERLIPS

THUNDERLIPS was born in 2012 to image-crazed uber-men Sean Wallace and Jordan Dodson. THUNDERLIPS drinks scotch for breakfast and eats dry coffee grounds. THUNDERLIPS uses hot sauce as eye drops and wears leather socks. Based in Auckland New Zealand, THUNDERLIPS’ method is to prepare meticulously, and then introduce chaos on-set. Here are three videos representative of THUNDERLIPS’ work they’d like to point you to. Glare, Cosby Kid and Sad & Blue. And here are five albums they’re loving right now… Read More »

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April 7, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 2 Nambassa

I met Louise Loft in Hamilton in 1978 and we started singing together under the name Negative Theatre. We played a few parties and supported Sam Hunt and Gary McCormack at a gig.

Through some sort of hippie grapevine we got the word that it was OK and we hitchhiked to organiser Peter Terry’s home near the future festival site…

In his lounge we auditioned for a spot at Nambassa #2 . Hoping to get on the small stage I guess. We sang the 7 songs I’d written up to that point… Read More »

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April 4, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

Five Albums We’re Loving Right Now: JBrown and The Mic Smith

JBrown & Mic Smith are a duo, a two man band, the blanket that the underdog sleeps on. The Mic Smith is the voice and JBrown is the beats. A long distance affair that spans from Auckland NZ right to Sydney Australia – it’s a case of music being sent via smoke signals and a dropbox account. The JBTMS sound is a warm and sticky mix of jazz notes, soul licks and hip-hop spread over a lightly toasted crumpet. Here’s Cookin Soul and new video, Like This. Or check out the Bandcamp page. Here are five albums they’re loving right now… Read More »

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March 31, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

The Ghost of Electricity: War Stories by Jon McLeary # 1 Bruno

The one and only time I met Bruno Lawrence…

One Sunday in the early 90s some friends and I headed up to Prince Of Wales Park for a cricket hit around. When we got there the field was already taken by various actors and musos including Bruno and family members. So we challenged them to a game.

Bruno decided he’d field with us because we were down on numbers and we got talking about drummers, standing in the slips. He was hilarious. . I told him about how I saw him at The Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival – we were walking up to the site when this old bomb of a car came roaring past with Bruno’s feet sticking out the window waving to everyone. Read More »

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March 31, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

Guest Blogging: The Ghost of Electricity – War Stories by Jon McLeary

I’m very happy to announce that, starting today, Off The Tracks will be hosting a new occasional series by Wellington artist, musician and writer Jon McLeary.

McLeary is the founder of The Spines, author of the book Manslaughter, painter of people and has invisibly done a surprising amount…we’re going to get to hear some of those war stories every week here at Off The Tracks. Read More »

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March 27, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

Five Albums I’m Loving Right Now: Chad Taylor

Chad Taylor writes books and screenplays. His novels include Departure Lounge, Electric and Shirker. His most recent was The Church of John Coltrane. His website is www.chadtaylor.co.nz. Here are five albums he’s loving right now….

1 – Oscar Peterson Trio, Last Call at the Blue Note: The Maharaja of the keyboard was 65 when he recorded this, which does not seem so old to me now. It was taped live at New York in 1990 and is one of a series. I buy jazz on CD because listening to it on headphones drives me nuts: horn in your left ear, drums in your right. I prefer to leave it playing at one end of the house while I work at the other. You can get a lot done when people are having fun in another room. There are only seven tracks on Last Call but they’re long and soft-sounding even though they’re busy. It starts off with Jim which is bluesy and noodling and picks up for a nearly twelve-minute version of Yours Is My Heart Alone. Track five is a medley which confuses my old CD player and contains a musical phrase that I feel like I’ve known all my life. I can’t work out which one it is. The atmosphere of the live recording is quite fantastic: a bunch of old guys playing with nothing to prove and an audience that keeps breaking out into applause. If you play the CD three times in a row a waiter will appear holding a fresh ashtray. Read More »

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March 26, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

Five Albums I’m Loving Right Now: Andrew McKenzie

Andrew McKenzie released solo album, The Edge of The World in 2010, before that he was a member of the band Grand Prix. Currently he’s a member of Golden Curtain – you can check out the band’s 2013 album, English Tuning via Bandcamp (name your price) and the band has readied a new album, Dream City. Here’s five albums he’s loving right now…

1 – Dwight Yoakam. Thinking about Leaving [Long Enough to Change My Mind]: This is all about old-school songwriting. Verse, chorus, verse etc where the chorus repeats and has a different angle after each different verse. From Hank Williams to this guy, there’s a direct line. Some people don’t like country; I blame Deliverance. It’s an important part of music history – even Bob Dylan seems to be more concerned with acknowledged forms of the past than forging new paths, musically. There’s a conservatism in country that leads to an appreciable economy, and lack of baroque carry on. The guitar and pedal steel solo is a good example of that. Read More »

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March 24, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

Five Albums I’m Loving Right Now: Mike McLeod

Mike McLeod is a Dunedin musician and venue owner. Mike plays guitar and sings in The Shifting Sands, who released their debut album Feel in 2012, and have their Sophomore album nearly in the can. Mike also drums in Bad Sav, a band that have released sporadic singles since 2009, and have an EP due for release this year. Mike has done a little session work, playing on David Kilgour’s Left by Soft, recording strings on The Guilty Office by The Bats, and recording and playing with Jay Clarkson on her contribution to the Chris Knox tribute album Stroke. Mike also runs Chicks Hotel, a music venue in Port Chalmers, 10km from Dunedin city, which is part of Dunedin’s burgeoning contemporary music scene. Here are five albums he’s loving right now… Read More »