Monday, July 24, 2006

The Ad That Rips Off Hoppípolla

Those of you who are fans of Sigur Rós may have noticed the Lotto advertisement that has begun airing on New Zealand television recently which features a poor imitation of the song Hoppípolla.

When I first heard the start of it last night I immediately identified the music as Sigur Rós, and as would be expected it grabbed my attention. However, shortly thereafter it became apparent that the beautiful piano progression written by the band has been altered to such an extent that I personally feel like Lotto are making some sort of sick attempt to skirt intellectual property rights (I am sceptical as to whether Sigur Rós would approve of their music being featured in some cheesy lottery ad; and even if the case happened to be that they do in fact approve, why does Lotto not use the real song instead of an inauthentic bludgeoned version cobbled together specifically for the advertisement?).

The imitation of the song contains no vocals, obviously not only because they are too hard to imitate, but because that would constitute really really running across the intellectual property line. In Lotto's interests, caution in rip-offery must be exercised. This hasn't stopped them from applying exactly the same muffling effect to the piano sound, the same splashing effect to the drum sound and even incorporating brass into the arpeggios of the climax, though. The sacrilegious fake plays in the background as potential Lotto winners look to the night sky to see shooting stars, as they fantasise about how great it would be to suddenly be a filthy rich self-indulgent monster through no effort whatsoever of their own other than buying a Lotto ticket.

In a state of outrage that was a little more than mild, I embarked on some investigation today and was disheartened to come across
a thread on the Sigur Rós Message Boards describing another instance of Hoppípolla being ripped off -- in a sequence in Scary Movie 4. This one is an even poorer attempt, as I discovered upon watching the sequence myself. In a sense, for me this renders it not so unbearable as the Lotto commercial -- it's different enough that it could almost be a horrible coincidence, and merely a score typically written for this type of scene, although it is discernable from the climax, what the melody develops into and the piano work in this particular forgery that it is definitely trying to sound like Hoppípolla. It's certainly not as bad as the Lotto ad, which is a far, far more blatant theft of artistic work.

To hear the real beauty of Sigur Rós's wonderful piece of artwork, you can download the Hoppípolla music video.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Daze

What a first week. I can tell already that this semester is going to be intense but awesome.

The most remarkable of my classes have been ARTHIST 204 and LATINAM 201, both of which are almost entirely new subject areas for me, but both of which count towards my media studies minor. Contemporary Art and Theory is characterised by a class in which, on first (intoxicated) count, there are five men in the congregation of about one hundred and fifty students; and impenetrable but gloriously pretentious readings (pretension is a good thing). Here’s a sample for you from Jean Baudrillard’s piece, ‘Astral America’:

Astral America. The lyrical nature of pure circulation. As against the melancholy of European analyses. The direct star-blast from vectors and signals, from the vertical and the spatial. As against the fevered distance of cultural gaze.

Joy in the collapse of metaphor, which here in Europe we merely grieve over. The exhilaration of obscenity, the obscenity of obviousness, the obviousness of power, the power of simulation. As against our disappointed virginity, our chasms of affectation.

Sideration. Star-blasted, horizontally by the car, altitudinally by the plane, electronically by television, geologically by deserts, stereolithically by the megalopoloi, transpolitically by the power game, the power museum that America has become for the whole world.
Obviously the course is right up my alley, but that in writing this entry in Microsoft Word the majority of the above-quoted sentences have been underlined green, suggesting grammatical nonsensicality, or red, suggesting retarded words, says a lot. I’ve got a lot of wide reading to do to catch up on this paper. Media studies students, having been encouraged to take the paper as part of their degree, have been advised to read up on modernity – because the course has jumped right into postmodernism, which is of course a little hard to grasp if you aren’t familiar enough with modernity already.

I get the feeling that the media studies students in the class are a significant minority (not that what I just said makes sense). Most class members are Elam students – interesting individuals, not that I’ve gathered up the courage to talk to any yet. I think the entire back row in which I sit is comprised of apprehensive media studies students. You can tell by the way they speak and how they don’t wear berets. Dodgy dodgy naff naff. It may be that the general androgyny of class members might be part of the reason why I am under the impression that there are so few men in the class, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Latin American History and Culture Through Film shows promise to be the most exotic course I have taken yet, aside from ARTHIST 204 of course. From the lecturer’s unique South American accent fused with a decidedly United States-sounding drawl, to the class comprised mainly of adults and the separate tutorials for English and Spanish speakers, and the fact that the course reader is massive as well as free, it has this strange effect of making me feel as if I’m not even part of the university environment whilst I am in the class. I would think that the dimmed lights and constant showing of film clips adds to the effect as well. It’s already obvious that it’s a much more sensible way of accumulating points for one’s media degree than doing ‘actual’ media courses.

On Thursday I had the pleasure of seeing Caveh Zahedi’s film I Am A Sex Addict, that is being screened as part of the International Film Festival, with Mat and Tina. A humourous self-effacing account of the director’s own addiction to prostitutes and how he overcame it, the film intersperses and layers narration and speeches to the camera provided by Caveh with dramatisations of the various situations that he encountered, featuring Caveh as himself. The various women whom Caveh had been in relationships with throughout his life – and whom he had attempted to render accommodating of his fetish – were played by a succession of superb actresses, although as Caveh commented in the narration, he attempted to get the real women themselves to take part in the film and play themselves. Such is the autobiographical intensity that Caveh obviously perceives I Am A Sex Addict to carry.

It is a reasonably simple film that manages to show the audience a great degree of the depth of Caveh’s personality. On the surface this is done through the filmic construction of his past experiences as they would have been seen through his own eyes, in an appropriately faux-realistic, melodramatic-hyperbolic style – allowing the audience to identify directly with his perception of events and evoking an endearingly awkward and precious character that a lot of us can identify with.

However, on a deeper level it shows Caveh’s increased strength as a human being, having personally progressed to such a degree in overcoming his prostitute fetish that he can now look back on all the problems that it caused for him and laugh. It shows that he is now far enough removed from his struggle that he can make fun of the events that it involved and make entertainment of it, whilst also acknowledging it enough to not deny the effect that it had on him and how it has influenced who he has become sexually.

I think for me I Am A Sex Addict was a decidedly good film to watch after having drunk two jugs of beer at Shadows twenty minutes beforehand. Considering that having had a jug before my ethnomusicology lecture the previous day had resulted in me taking intense amusement to the lecturer innocently noting that if it were in fact true that the Pacific Islands were originally founded by a group including only two women, “they were busy, and very productive,” the film was destined to be eye-wateringly funny after two jugs. In the latter parts of the film I had my scarf draped over the peak of my cap and was twiddling the tassles imagining that it was my fringe, and was pushing, prodding and poking my open eyes with my fingers because I was too gone to hesitate.

Friday night contained the Westlake Boys’ and Westlake Girls’ High Schools’ stage production of Footloose which was held at the just-opened-this-year Westlake Boys’ Auditorium. Although rife with crude, unfunny humour (“So what do you do around here for fun?” was replied to by another character with the hand signal for masturbation, for example) it was thoroughly entertaining, with reasonable timelessness, an epic scale and most of all great music all being part of the experience.

At the commencement of the musical, the audience was invited to get up and dance in the aisles during the show. Mat, Andrew and I saved it to the last song, but we put on a good show ourselves, with the stage being empty besides the band and the majority of the auditorium’s attention on us. The deputy headmaster was not pleased – apparently he was staring us down – but we’d had the invitation to dance.

After the auditorium had been vacated we continued to dance outside the music block, to an isolated cry of “faggot!”. Going to Footloose was a rewarding experience, not just because it was a great show, but because it reaffirmed to me how much I’ve been able to distance myself from the culture of Westlake during my short time at university, emphasising that I really was never a part of it, and highlighting the phantasmagoric levels of individual freedom of expression that university students are lucky to be afforded.

Last night was the night of the Australian Pink Floyd Project with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra at the Aotea Centre. The orchestra opened on its own with a beautiful, gentle, uplifting and tear-jerking performance of Comfortably Numb which, interestingly, without rock accompaniment was not discernable by many people around me as a Pink Floyd piece (“I don’t recognise this -- this isn’t Pink Floyd!” gasped the mum next to me in mild annoyance). I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet so to speak but this gave me something of an impression that I have more of an ear for Pink Floyd’s music than the average ‘fan’ – for once, it wasn’t as simple as picking out the opening bassline or knowing the lyrics (there was, of course, no singing at this point), so suddenly scores of people were dumbfounded. It was quite a strange concept to suddenly be taking on. It made me feel good about myself though.

Following that, a wake-up call came in the form of a spirited and thunderous rendition of Bring The Boys Back Home, before the fantastically flamboyant and down-to-earth orchestral conductor introduced the rock band onstage, for a considerably lengthy moment forgetting the lattermost word in their name. The familiar heartbeat heralded the beginning of the full compliment’s run-through of The Dark Side of the Moon. In the first half of this section, On The Run in particular was evoked surprisingly spectacularly, with flute weaving skilfully in and out of the old faithful synthesiser progression, cymbals being worked nimbly by John Zak and trumpets believe it or not effectively providing the airplane sounds.

During Time I realised that the electric guitar was probably not high up enough in the mix, although undoubtedly this was to compensate for the presence of the orchestra (the audience did want to be able to hear it, after all) and the prominence of the two male singers’ powerful voices. I found myself a tad frustrated at having to squint my ears to hear the execution of one of the best guitar solos ever written, but the band redeemed themselves here with Jamie Messenger’s great keyboard effects that super-effectively conveyed the sound of Rick Wright’s Hammond organ (Messenger is also one of the two awesome men responsible for writing the superb orchestral score especially for this project).

The Great Gig In The Sky was simply gobsmacking, with not only the three female backing singers proving themselves but the orchestra fully coming into its own with what was to be one of the most incredible interpretations of the whole night. Money issued the first massive wave of ecstasy from the audience, with one of the most well-known basslines in rock music being unexpectedly substituted for the gorgeous throaty sound of all the cellos in the orchestra entering the fray at once. It was fantastic watching all the cellists enthusiastically bobbing their heads to the 7/4 time signature whilst the truly superb saxophonist soloed over the top and Rob Pippan wielded his axe with silky smooth precision.

Us And Them and Brain Damage both stood out spectacularly in terms of the orchestral compositions that had been written for them – unfortunately, Any Colour You Like was skipped; it is strange to note the regular criticism this piece comes under for sounding “dated.” I’ve even heard it said that it contains “faintly hilarious axemanship”! Personally I think it’s a fantastic piece and I hope the Australian Pink Floyd Project didn’t leave it out for the aforementioned reasons. However, I must say that the soaring arpeggios of Eclipse were the best I’ve ever heard them sound with a full orchestra backing them up. The piece was made appropriately epic and exultant in the league that I’ve always wished it was on the studio album (although it is undeniably mindblowing on there, too).

After a break the orchestra performed The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn Suite – this was a rendition of the Syd Barrett-penned songs Scarecrow, Bike and Astronomy Domine in tribute to the man himself. These sounded fantastic played by the orchestra, particularly the menacing take on Astronomy Domine and the two male vocalists did a superb vocal job.

Then came what was inevitably going to be the musical and emotional highlight of the night – Shine On You Crazy Diamond. The song has never sounded so sorrowful and this was only made all the more poignant by Syd Barrett’s recent passing. One could hear the members of the audience taking deep shaky breaths in and out amidst the swelling violins and cellos and between what would have usually been keyboard solos, but which now were replaced by absolutely gorgeous, ornate bass flute work and trumpet work at different times. The final guitar solo before the opening lyrics of “Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun” was substituted for a stunning violin solo that actually did a very good job at sounding like it was caught somewhere halfway between violin and guitar. I was afraid to move my body at all during this song for fear of breaking out in emotion or feeling disrespectful to Syd. But the explosion of applause and cheering at the end made up for this.

In the closing quarter of the concert the Australian Pink Floyd Project showed a welcome liking for A Momentary Lapse of Reason material, with the ensemble conjuring up a fiery Dogs of War, precise and spine-tingling Signs of Life, and levitating Learning To Fly, as well as a repetition of Comfortably Numb – this time with the rock band helping out – and the obligatory singalong of Wish You Were Here. Another Brick In The Wall, Pt. 2 occurred as a rousing encore. With that, the massive gathering of performers took a bow and a fantastic night was done. To anyone who didn’t go to the Australian Pink Floyd Project this time but would have considered it, I thoroughly recommend that you go when you get another chance.

Not only was the evening utterly enjoyable for me as a Pink Floyd fan but it has increased the interest that I’ve always had in me to attend orchestral performances exponentially and I’m certainly going to have to look at going to see the Auckland Philharmonia perform again in the near future. This is the start of something great and it’s all thanks to my favourite musicians having written such versatile music that can flawlessly transcend the boundaries between pop and classical music. Fantastic.

Thom Yorke’s The Eraser has been the soundtrack of my past week of life. I will say now that I’m extremely keen on the new album – it is brilliant, and he has nailed it -- but I’ll save the run-down for another entry.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Chapter Four

An attempt was made to plug back in
To the loop, but only to be smitten
By shocking recoil
Recoil
Recoil

A clean start marks also the end
Of nonsense struggle
False hope
Nonsense struggle
False hope
But this is a new circuit
It starts with a long straight
I'm at the front of the grid
This time

Little boys tackle punching bags
And pummel them when they're down
But I'm a big boy
And I'm not the bag
Not the bag
Look behind you
I am not the bag

Erasing the dark, a light appears
An unspeakable beauty and warmth
It just wasn't meant to be
Just wasn't meant to be
Why did I allow myself to become
Quademo?

But this is Chapter Four
And I'm dazzled

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Shine On You Crazy Diamond: Roger Keith Barrett 1946 - 2006


Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun
Shine on you crazy diamond
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky
Shine on you crazy diamond
You were caught in the cross-fire of childhood and stardom, blown on the steel breeze
Come on you target for far away laughter, come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
You reached for the secret too soon,
you cried for the moon
Shine on you crazy diamond
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed to the light
Shine on you crazy diamond
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision
Rode on the steel breeze
Come on you raver, you seer of visions, come on you
painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

Nobody knows where you are, how near or how far,
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Pile on many more layers and I'll be joining you there.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
And we'll bask in the shadow of yesterday's triumph,
and sail on the steel breeze
Come on you boy-child, you winner and loser,
Come on you miner for truth and delusion, and shine!

- Waters, Wright, Gilmour

The founding frontman, vocalist and lead guitarist of Pink Floyd, affectionately known as Syd, passed away on the seventh of July, UK time, due to complications with his diabetes. The announcement was not made until today.

He will live on forever, remembered as the visionary that he was, and leaving a legacy of fantastic art that has altered the history of rock music.

Words cannot describe how deeply I feel about this. But all my worldly problems suddenly seemed insignificant upon hearing this news.

If you have the Pink Floyd albums Wish You Were Here and The Piper At The Gates of Dawn, please give them both a spin tonight, and play them loud. Let's give Syd a cosmic send-off.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

Friday, July 07, 2006

A Povvo Play

Tax rebate of one hundred and seven dollars was supposed to have saved me by now.

This July's an expensive month. First there's Thom Yorke's solo album The Eraser coming out at the start of next week. Please keep your eyes pield if you like (caution of: desiccation). Sigur Rós's Saeglopur EP, which will feature the title track along with three new compositions, and come with a bonus DVD featuring the music videos for all of the singles that have been released from the album Takk... so far, is due around the same time.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Australian Pink Floyd Project at the Aotea Centre on the twenty-second. They're a ten-piece rock band who will be accompanied by the full-strength Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra as they perform a Pink Floyd tribute concert with a twist -- a specially-written orchestral score that will no doubt give an even more epic interpretation of Pink Floyd's music. It's going to be brilliant.

Dungen are a reknowned Swedish progressive rock band who are scheduled to visit New Zealand for one show at the Kings Arms in Auckland on the twenty-fifth of this month. I'm interested in going to the gig not only because we don't get enough chances to see these sorts of acts perform in New Zealand, but on the basis of how great I think their music sounds as heard on their MySpace page, and having read rave reviews of Dungen's live performances, with their extended psychedelic wig-outs punctuated by Zeppelin-like riffing. It could also give me a chance to meet some other people in Auckland who, like me, might aspire to seeing the meshing together of a proper local art rock scene.

In order to cover the costs of these numerous expensive events that will be taking place throughout the month of July, as well as the bill of almost nine hundred dollars for the servicing and repair of my car (trust me, the old Oculus is a different beast now... No more engine gagging and bunny-hopping at speed in the cold, to name but one massively significant improvement), I have had to take up full-time work at my dad's work for the rest of the holidays, performing “the bum jobs.” That means I'm sacrificing every weekday remaining in the holidays for money. It's an interesting working environment. I've worked there several times before.

The job involves factory work and the types of people appropriate to such activities. They speak in a different dialect entirely to my usual student co-workers – a dialect that I've found I'm able to tune into quite well after my constant dual piss-taking and embracing of the Radio Hauraki-listening tradesman stereotype in the company of friends. But it's not all like this at the factory. One individual in particular has proved interesting -- an ex-philosophy student of the University of Auckland, now a middle-aged factory worker who boasts that because cannabis stays in one's system for six weeks after one has smoked it, he has technically not been clean since 1970. His voice is constantly cracking in excitement as I tell him of Arts lecturers that I know of at the University of Auckland whom he apparently had for classes in his time and that are still teaching the same classes now.

This afternoon, after he illustrated to me an alternative, more effective method of assembling a certain component, I made the observation, "Oh, logic," to which he classically replied, "It's as if Aristotle was never even born to you, isn't it?" A few moments later he sought assurance from me that Aristotle was in fact the person who invented logic. After I confirmed this, he laughed, "This is going back a few years." His face then took on a more serious expression -- "I should know by now not to doubt myself." People at work call him a "weirdo" behind his back, but I think that everybody needs to make more of an effort to understand this guy and his choice of car, a humble Hillman Imp. He's obviously awesome.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Illusion of Certainty

Finally, it is definite what papers I will be taking next semester:

  • ARTHIST 204 Contemporary Art and Theory;
  • ANTHRO 238 Musics of the Pacific;
  • LATINAM 201 Latin American History and Culture Through Film;
  • POLITICS 237 Security Studies

Sorry, Pie, I just thought ANTHRO 219 would have been too frustrating for me.

Lovely weather, isn't it? Auckland's been so lucky to have had this weather for practically all of the past week, especially considering what's been going on in the South Island -- eighteen days without power? As an Aucklander, I certainly would have trouble coping with that. Then there's been the snowfall in the central North Island that caused all of the main roads through there to be closed, which also makes me ponder, how might that have affected the skiing holiday of Pie and friends?

It's been very cold -- I don't remember a previous winter that has required me to wear several sweatshirts over the top of one another -- but the overwhelmingly sunny skies have made up for it. Last Sunday I went for an epic and emotionally refreshing walk along the Te Henga track from Muriwai to Bethells Beach (which I had attempted but aborted in the summer due to unpleasant cicada swarming), only to find that I had been walking for so long that I wouldn't be able to make it back across the cliff faces to where my car was before dark. I had to get Dad to pick me up and take me on the decidedly long circumnavigational trip to my ailing vehicle.

Since then, winter has also claimed my car -- not really surprising considering I've driven it for around twenty-five thousand kilometres since I bought it and it hasn't been serviced in that time. The people at the garage couldn't start it when it was left there -- they had to roll it into the workshop! This is after it stalled at a set of traffic lights on the way there (in its state of disrepair, the car required you to rev the shit out of it when stationary to keep the engine running) and had to be bump-started down a hill in reverse. I won't have it back until at least Tuesday, and the repairs are going to cost a lot, but that's the way it goes. I'm heading to reapply at Pak 'n Save as soon as I get the car back because I'm in such need of money. I am currently rationing seven dollars.

I hope everyone who had exams found them alright and are enjoying their new freedom now that exams are over. I feel good about my ethnomusicology and politics exam efforts, but not so much about my one in media studies -- I'm in limbo over that one and have no idea whether I am going to pass the paper. Roughly thirty-five per cent in the exam will pass me. Not that I'm too concerned. The main bother would be that I'd endured a semester of a terrible subject, only for my time spent to yield no fruit. Ooh yeah.