I was looking forward to buying this CD, since I enjoyed Anna Coddington’s performance a few months ago. Even though it’s been quite a long time since then, I still remember quite a few of the songs. The songs worked really well live, with Anna accompanying herself on guitar; the fuller production on the album adds another dimension without ever overwhelming the basic voice and guitar structure.

Lots of highlights for me. Hold You Here and Sweet Sweet Nothings are both melodic and easy (but not too easy) to listen to. The jaunty Sentences opens with what could be a nice summary of the album:

I know it for sure
I think too much
About this guitar
And my feelings and such

T-Shirt is a darker song. The sound reminds me of the Australian power-pop band Clouds, one of my favourite groups; the guitar has a very slightly edgier sound, at least during the verses. The song starts with the beautifully evocative lines “I blew my brains out / Butterflies came out”. This reminded me of the title track from Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral: “Everything’s blue in this world / The deepest shade of mushroom blue / All fuzzy / Spilling out of my head.” The NIN track is of course far more depressing, but I still like the thought that I might be the first person ever to compare Anna Coddington to Nine Inch Nails.

In contrast, The Long Way Home features just voice and guitar; it took me back to that solo performance. Ah, the memories. Good times, good times.

Apparently Anna hangs out with a bunch of other Kiwi singer-songwriter women like Anika Moa and Bic Runga. You can hear this on the album — I never noticed it live, but on The Lake I can hear a few Bic Runga-like vocal stylings. Anna’s enunciation is not quite as mannered as Bic’s though. That’s a good thing. Still, her voice is sweet enough to confuse one local newspaper reviewer, who couldn’t reconcile Anna’s voice with her day job as a karate instructor. That was one weird piece of music criticism — on the strength of this album, Anna’s clearly nothing less than a renaissance woman.

I had a great time at this big, fun and loud film about a big, fun and loud elephant. The story of Horton and the Whos is one of my 2-year-old son’s favourite stories, so this was a good choice as his first ever cinema experience. He enjoyed it, and so did we. In the manner of kids’ films these days, there were lots of jokes for the adults. During the anime sequence I was crying tears of laughter. That doesn’t happen to me that often — maybe because I don’t go to very many films.

Anyway, this is definitely worth seeing. And it confirmed to me that any film is improved by watching it with a 2-year-old.

I was amazed a year or so ago to see that “Nitzer Ebb” were due to play a gig at a local venue here in Auckland. They will most likely release a new album this year. It will be interesting to hear what it sounds like. They started out 25 years ago with noises, shouting, fist-pumping and Futurism (that’s where the Alec Empire connection comes in) but moved more and more towards traditional song structures. Apparently they have already played some of their new material live and broadcast so I can’t wait to hear it.

It’s funny — I always liked Alec Empire’s music, but never quite as much as I thought I should. Maybe it didn’t sound enough like Nitzer Ebb. But at least one of his new tracks, “New Man”, is just perfect: relentless pounding beat, hypnotic, discordant basslines, etc. Though the main bassline makes me think of Gary Numan’s “Are ‘Friends’ Electric”, which I think even predates Nitzer Ebb.

Maybe kids now think Alec Empire sounds dated, like those old fogeys Nitzer Ebb and Gary Numan…

God is not Great takes iconoclasm to new heights. Hitchens heaps scorn on the usual zealots, from Osama bin Laden to various Popes (including the current one). But his targets cover the full spectrum of celebrity, from the sublime (Mother Theresa, M. K. Gandhi, the Dalai Lama) to the ridiculous (Mel Gibson is memorably described as an “Australian fascist and ham actor”). The only famous exception is Martin Luther King, Jr., who manages to come out looking like a decent (if flawed) human being.

I enjoyed reading God is not Great, but I think it does miss the point a bit. In the conflict between Reason and Faith, Reason wins easily; but that’s because Faith isn’t playing the game. Some say that if people believe religious dogmas even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, then this simply confirms how marvellously strong their faith is. You just can’t use logic against this kind of position, but that what Hitchens tries to do. This approach only seems to work here because he is preaching to the converted. Or perhaps I should say unconverted.God

God is not Great is a compelling book. It should make for a lively discussion at your next church reading group meeting. And if everyone actually reads it then it might be your last meeting.

Ben Kemp is a very nice Kiwi musician who has lived in Japan for some time now. He has gotten together with a group of Japanese musicians to form his band. The music works really well live — they go for extended soundscapes built around each song, with Kemp’s voice sometimes acting as another instrument. The mood ranges from gentle and contemplative to a bit more noisy and experimental on some tracks, where they might try to evoke the sound of the sea or a storm. It’s hypnotic stuff.

Between songs he tells how the songs came to be, and also shares some stories about himself. The show was nice and intimate — at one point he brought out a couple of bottles of Japanese liquor (sake and umeshu) and passed them around the audience. You can’t much more chilled-out than that.

The curtain-raiser for the evening was Anna Coddington. She played a set of her own melodic, heartfelt songs while accompanying herself on the guitar. She has an engaging stage presence and a good sense of humour, she’s good-looking and slightly quirky, and her lovely voice suits the songs perfectly. I was also impressed by her guitar playing: Some singers just play a few chords to accompany themselves, but she got a lot of different sounds and textures out of her instrument without ever overshadowing the songs. I think in a fair world she should be a superstar, or at least a star. Her album comes out in a month or so, so maybe she will be!

Politics, cyberpunk (pseudo)science, philosophy, big explosions and scantily-clad nubile young women. Sure it’s only a comic, but it still left me as breathless as a frenetic action film.

This chunky book looks to be a compilation of several episodes of a series. The great thing is that they have translated only what they had to — the comic still reads right-to-left, and a lot of the Japanese writing (especially the onomatopoeia) is still there. They’ve done a good job of preserving the feel of the original manga while making it readable in English.

I bought this in Tokyo four years ago but only just got around to reading it. When I bought the book (at Kinokuniya in Shinjuku, I think), the shop staff covered it in the traditional plain brown wrapper, ingeniously folding it so I could read the book on the train without causing a scandal. Very handy at work: when the book is closed it looks like some sort of textbook.

Just click the Smilebow picture to go to the website. Register, vote, and be associated with the birth of a T-shirting legend. Also you can look at a lot af very fun shirt designs, and even buy some shirts if you want to buy some shirts.

And we saw it at the Lido cinema in Epsom — oh how I love the Lido. Excellent coffee and an afghan before the film, comfy seats during, and friendly staff.

I saw the film with Joanne at the Sky City Gold Class cinema, which was quite appropriate: as we watched the film we were able to relax in our armchairs and enjoy the aromas of our chicken nibbles and glasses of wine.