Much Better Sundays

I didn’t go out this weekend. This wasn’t just laziness, and I have an excuse:

I spent my last $20 on the new So So Modern CD. (Okay, technically second-to-last. Bus tickets. I have to get to work somehow.)

I didn’t even get to listen to it straight away. Thank god somewhere on Lambton Quay had it or I wouldn’t've had time to get it at all. So it had to wait till after work today. My mother had to remind me; I was reading an exceedingly violent book. Possibly she just wanted to hear it herself.

When you’re reading a book that ends with the main character’s death, it’s really nice to listen to music that makes you feel so good. Do I like it better because I know the songs, because they remind me of awesome times at awesome gigs? Probably. I think I like them anyway, in my own house, with no risk of hearing damage or tall guys pushing ahead in packed out crowds. It’s fun times without the stress. It’s knowing there’s good in the world even as a teenaged cult member in your novel hangs himself – that book was even more Lord of the Flies than Lord of the Flies.

So gosh, I love it. And I’m grateful I live at home so I didn’t need that $20 for, say, food. Instead I get to listen to pure awesomeness, and all is well with the world.

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.”

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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.

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