My life is just one great Adventure in New Zild Music, it's just too hard to pick a favourite from a thousand Friday and Saturday nights of fun. But there were some magic moments on the Die! Die! Die! album release tour that might just make the grade.

Kicking off in Hamilton: Sohl bar on a Thursday night. A few gaffa-taped leads mark a 'stage' on the floor. The Clerics kick off with a blistering set, whipping excitement to near fever pitch with their scum-core disco beats.
Die! Die! Die! quickly plug in and get down to business.
"If you're going to jump on the pedals, get that one," Andrew jabs it with the toe of his Jack Purcells. "It's the distortion."
At eye level and within arm's reach, the way the Htown posse likes shows best. It's a frantic and frenzied set, one of the best I've ever seen these cats play. There's blood all over the cymbal and the bass. Henry examines his wounded finger between songs, shrugs and continues with the throbbing rhythms. Andrew somehow discards his guitar and in one movement, falls into the dancing throng, lying at our feet still muttering mantras into the mic. With his encouragement, Ryan picks up the battered guitar and drones a few detuned chords. Henry and Mikey follow suit, offering up their bloodstained instruments for the baying hoard to dismantle. They stand in the thick of the crowd, toes to the gaffa-and-mic-lead line, heckling their hecklers. Clerics drummer Gary Teko, standing on a snare, cries out "destroy the kit!" - and even Sohl's dish-monkey joins in the tribal percussion. Someone is rapping in German atop the chaos. Die! Die! Die! stand back and let the frenzy play itself out.

I didn't think anything could trump that, until the Auckland show at Fu Bar two nights later. Set up at eye level again, this time in front of a seething hoard of several hundred bodies. It's a name-checker's wet dream up front, a scenester who's who of Die! Die! Die!'s faithful fans, and not a bad turn-out considering this is one of three album release shows in Auckland tonight. There's still blood on the drums and the bass pick guard, and still a spark of Thursday night's Bacchanalian frenzy in the way Henry and Andrew prod and provoke the crowd - creeping over the imaginary barrier between stage and audience, willing the throng to react in kind. And they do, thank goodness, they do, and suddenly Andrew is screaming from mid-air, held aloft by unsteady arms, while Henry is leaning back casually on a wall of bodies. By now a few punters -- and performers -- from the Ruby Suns' release show have dashed down Queen Street and darted into the thick of this passion play. Gareth has the mic in hand and thrusts it in Andrew's direction, now lying screaming the songs from the ground. Thom from Yokel Ono has found himself on top of Mikey on the dismantled heap of what was once a drum kit, adding his voice to the din. Hands, hundreds of hands, claw at the boys of Die! Die! Die! as if trying to consume them, take them over, absorb them into the seething mass.

When our H-town Invasion party arrived at the Kings Arms two weeks later, for the tour's homecoming show, the daunting waist-high stage and the stunned-mullet crowd struck us immediately – posing room only, where were we gonna dance?. Intent on getting our travel-weary groove on, a few of our posse found a platform under the stage dragged out this makeshift podium for us to dance upon. A few of the natives cautiously joined us: the Malenky Robot and 1000 crews, a pair of cat-eared ladies, Eric Chang and his hotties. Two dozen bodies now, dancing on a box, it started getting crowded. Yokel Ono’s Thom and Glen were barely making use of the vast Kings Arms stage, so someone calls out:
“hey, mind if we dance with you?”
And in an instant, half of Hamilton is on the Kings Arms’ lofty stage, making the most of ample room to dance and feed off Yokel Ono’s frantic energy. The Cheese On Toast crew turn away uncomfortably. A stock-still poser halfway to the back of the room shouts “get off, we can’t see!”
Our Malenky Robot dancing buddies followed suit during their set. Hamilton again invaded the stage, and Joe-bot threw himself into the posse on the podium, landing headfirst, being flipped upside down by a gaggle of 1000s, crawling back onto the stage smeared with blood. Nights like this are an OSH hazard in the making.
Never ones to be outdone by their support acts’ antics, Die! Die! Die! rip into their performance with animal intensity. Andrew spits every ranting lyric in our faces, another teasing provocation to action. The cat-eared girls take to the stage and kiss Mikey. Andrew is pulled onto the podium and across another sea of lifted arms, as far as the mic lead will reach. He drags himself back to the stage, swimming against a sea of arms. This time he calls Ryan out, puts the guitar on him, deliberately evoking the insanity of that first night of the tour. The Htown Invasion posse again take to the stage, encouraged, even dragged up by the band. Somehow I even find myself dragged up for this frenzied finale. With nowhere to escape to, Henry leans against his amp grinning a malevolent grin, as we revel in the beat Mikey draws out.

[ http://petrajane.com/snap/20050924 ]

now now, children...

so what IS happening in the h next weekend and the one after? i might be having some friends down & it's always good to show them a rockin good time, even if it involves death threats from the bar owner & his bouncer cronies, scary munters demanding their money back, and idiot vjs from hell...

"1. NATURE - written by Wayne Mason/The Fourmyula and performed by The Mutton Birds"

k, maybe i just misinterpreted that bit then...

still, only one F'Nun track in the top ten?

does...not...compute...APRA's a songwriters' organisation, and the Scrolls are about the songs themselves, not who wrote 'em. Anyone know how/why the Muttonbirds version of 'Nature' supposedly won? surely the honour ought to have gone to Fourmyula frontman-legend-dude Wayne Mason?

[ http://www.apra.co.nz ]

FREEdom form - the subliminals

YES!

sometimes i want to -punch- those people who claim to like music but list their tastes as "oh, everything" or even worse "everything except country and rap"...

genre-wise i guess i do like 'everything'. d+b, rock, pop, dub, country, hip-hop, noise, blah blah...but within each of those genres there are goods and bads. i don't like bob marley but i love [love love love] the black seeds. i don't like, say, zed or coldplay at all, but pluto rock my socks.

a mate of mine used to say this: there's only two types of music. it's either good, or it ain't.

'cactus CAT' - look blue go purple.

hahahahaha, oh man my sides hurt...stop it, all of you...

i stalk-ed pluto in hamilton the other week. full creeping-around-on-tiptoes cliche action. getting the setlist signed for a friend. but 'twas all in groupie-mocking self-conscious good fun...

but shagging boys-in-bands and boasting about it? even a self-professed-stalker-ace like myself wouldn't step so LOW! that's new depths of lame. and potentially embarrasing for the nation's rockboy contingent, discovering one's ex-lovers are screaming groupie cliches willing to brag about their 'conquests' on the innernet.

it doesn't make you cool, you just come across as a pathetic slag. what would your mother think?

[ http://stalker.nightmode.net/1pluto ]

so i saw this band on Friday night. only, they weren't a band. at least no guitars, no bass, jus' 2 guys on keyboards, a turntablist an' a drummer. they got a room full of snotty guitarkids rocking out harder than any so-called "rock" band i've seen in months [and i see a LOT of so-called rock bands].

it was Avotor; they had the groove to dance to, the tunes to bop along to, original sounds in terms of genres and sampletude, and enough little fiddly 'wow' bits to impress the chin-strokers.

when's the last time you got that from your local pub rock outfit?

yeh, avotor are freakin' brilliant! it's more rock n roll than any rock n roll band i've seen in months! had ward lane tav' well and truly -pumping- on friday night.

but the devil has all the best tunes...well, till the H stole 'em...

ok. so HDU had this song where it started quiet, then it went loud. ALL OTHER BANDS WHOSE SONGS START QUIET THEN GO LOUD ARE COPYING HDU! BOYCOT THEM! CALL THEM MEAN NAMES! PULL THEIR HAIR AND STEAL THEIR PLAYLUNCH!

or, like, loosen up. geez!

so who did i see crowdsurfing [and subsequently being chucked outta the mosh by surly security-dudes] at the rockquest finals the other week? mike, ya hoodlum!

xx