Auckland City Limits has published its timetable and site map for March 19 The site configuration will be familiar to anyne who went to the last Big Day Out, but there a few differeneces – most notably that the entrance and box office are now at the foot of the Bullock Track and there's an Auckland Kiddie Limits zone in one corner of Motat.
Fat Freddy's Drop, The National and Kendrick Lamar headline the Spark statges in the stadium with relatively long sets – 75 minutes for the first two and 90 minutes for Kendrick. Girl Talk, Shapeshifter and Modest Mouse take the evening on the V-Energy stages out in the front field. Earlier in the day, Carnivorous Plant Society (4pm in the Golden Dawn zone) and Phoenix Foundation (6.30pm) are of note.
The field and stadium bars will be serving mid-strength (up to 3.5%) drinks, including Mac's really-quite-good Mid Vicious Pale Ale, which can be consumed anywhere onsite and the R18 lakeside Golden Dawn bar will offer higher-strength drinks to be consumed within the confines of the bar.
NB: The timetable on the ACL website isn't displaying properly for me in Safari, so I've uploaded a simple jpeg here.
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I was talking to music teacher and teenage band coach Jeni Little on Twitter the other day and the conversation turned to a blog post she wrote a couple of years ago called The Truth About Music, which describes her opening up from an academic background ("I played and studied music composed by dead white men") to an embrace of the community role of song and dance during the six months she spent in Rarotonga. It's lovely.
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Also lovely: I wrote a while back about the nasty harassment suffered at Laneway by my friend Jean Hughes. I delighted to report that a few people and companies have clubbed into donate a care package for Jean to affirm that what happened was not okay.
Thanks go principally to Andrew "Drus" Dryden of Sensitive Boyfriend, who had the idea and did most of the legwork, and to Madman, Mixitup
and Cheese on Toast for kicking to help. And big ups to Laneway promoter Mark Kneebone – who sent a lovely letter to Jean with the offer of free double passes to Laneway for the next five years.
I've also been able to give Shelley two Auckland City Limits tickets. It's nice to get a good thing out of a bad thing, and for the music community to play its part in that.
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Going to the Jesus and Mary Chain tomorrow evening? Tito at Rebel Soul Music on K Road is hosting some drinks and playing some appropriate tuneage beforehand.
While Flying Nun founder Roger Shepherd checks the spelling on his forthcoming memoir, you can read John Russell's 1997 Rip It Up interview with Roger on Audioculture.
But the big one on Audioculture lately is Grant Gillanders' lowdown on the Wellington psych-pop sensations of the 1960s, The Avengers. They were a hell of a band.
Ever dreamed about a life-drawing class with Iggy Pop as the model? Yeah, it was in New York last month and you missed it.
And, pursuant to some discussion on Facebook this week, John Peel interviewed on 95bFM during his 2002 visit to New Zealand:
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Tunes!
The NZ On Air Soundcloud account has done a bunch of reposting of recent local releases, including Baynk's 'Could You', which is a free download:
And Eden Mulholland's epic 'Singularity':
For some smoove groove: you probably have Sade's 'Why Can't We Live Together' tucked away somewhere in your subconscious. The original is by Timmy Thomas and this is a sweet little edit by a couple of different DJs. Free download:
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The Hard News Friday Music Post is kindly sponsored by:
