Much Better Sundays

So, there’s this band and I really like them. They’re called Seth & Merle, and they make kind of beautiful wafting folk music with some kicks from this keyboard and amazing lyrics that stay in your head all day. They played a great set at Camp A Low Hum 2008 (‘Like, one of the best things ever’) and supported Beirut when they were in town. Being that they’re sort of awesome, I went to ask them questions and they gave me tea.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s actually just a front. We’re going to start an ice cream campaign, says Grayson Gilmour, 25% of So So Modern (Inc.). ‘We thought it was a good opportunity, to begin an indie band and use that as a foundation to invest in the ice cream industry.’ ‘Colourful, karma-free ice cream,’ says Dan Nagels (who hits things with sticks, rhythmically). Aidan Leong, who, with Grayson, builds sound from pure energy via a “synthesiser”, forms another four sixteenths. Mark Leong (also synth, no relation) is not present. I suspect that they have removed him from the space-time continuum because he threatened to disclose their secret intentions to travel through wormholes on the backs of giant serpents.

If So So Modern was an inanimate object, what would it be? ‘It’s an electric toothbrush. It’s efficient and all about dental hygiene,’ Aidan says. ‘I’m still sticking with the push pop. It’s flavour you can suck,’ says Grayson. ‘How about an electric toothbrush with a push pop on the bottom, so you can enjoy it and then clean your teeth?’ Aidan suggests. ‘We’d be a faceless, soulless multi national corporation,’ says Dan. ‘So So Modern Incorporated,’ Grayson says. ‘We’d probably be a dot com. A communist torrent site!’ 

If you like music, live in New Zealand and haven’t heard of So So Modern (Inc.) then you are decidedly strange. Please become normal fast. This is, after all, the only band that I have actually seen smash an instrument on stage. While you have been brain dead, Wellington’s darlings have begun to execute their plan for world domination, beginning with an international tour, spanning the United States, London and Germany. I’ve heard that people over there quite liked them. They have now released a piece of musical merchandise, Friendly Fires, and, once they’ve finished gladdening our homely hearts, ‘would like to travel over some more oceans’.

Read the rest of this entry »

I can think of many Ladybird alliterations. Lively. Lovely. Lucky. Loquacious. They all seem to fit; Ladybird are charming French indie-pop-rockers who once played in a tree. In the line-up we have Victor Crespi, on guitar and lead vocals; Luc Arnault, on drums and vocals; Julien Paraveau (absent at time of interview) on lead guitar; and Nikco M. ART, tambourine boy and general curiosity.

We meet at Fidel’s. Victor is blondish and looks about 16; Luc is wearing a green trilby hat that appears to have been shaped from a leaf; Nikco has pink sunglasses even though it’s 5.30 on a Wellington winter evening. Later he will dip his cake into his milkshake and eat it. Anything Ladybird do that might require an explanation can be dismissed with, “Oh, well. They’re French.”

Read the rest of this entry »

What do you feel when you hear really good music? There’s a chill in your bones; a feeling that the moment can never be repeated… You are almost at the tip of a cresting wave, a tiny part of a movement that cannot be stopped. It’s almost spiritual.

That’s what I feel, anyway.

What if you were to chase that feeling? Dedicate yourself to bringing that spiritual moment to others. Spreading the love. Growing the scene. Propagating the doctrine of Really Good Music.

There is a man who does this. He is known as Blink. He is the mastermind of A Low Hum and all it produces. He is a Good Guy. And he likes white trash food.

Read the rest of this entry »