I'm a Piscean metro-dyke in my mid-20s, whose heavy diet of music and hunger for new sounds balances the rigours of my daily grind as a media slave. Once described as a buxom blonde, I'll modestly agree, while also admitting that I also like to be in touch with my butch side by wearing wife beaters and yelling at rugby.
Sigur Ros: Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust (With a Buzz in Our Ears We Play Endlessly)
When I listen to previous Sigur Ros albums I feel I’m gently submerging deeper and deeper underwater. This new album is more like a flying trip up to the clouds, then a slow drift back down again.
Med sud I eyrum vid spilum endalaust is the fifth album from the Icelandic band, led by openly gay lead singer Jonsi Birgisson.
Here, Sigur Ros retain the ethereal beauty that has won the hearts of fans worldwide. However they also feel lighter, more fun and free spirited.
The happy first single Gobbledigook has been jumping in my headphones since it was released free online a few months ago. Its spirited drum beats make Sigur Ros almost danceable (clip contains nudity):
The vast track seven Ara Batur begins gently, with just Jonsi’s gorgeously forlorn voice accompanied by piano. It grows to include 90 people, including the London Sinfonietta and London Oratory Boys’ Choir, becoming a masterpiece on a grand scale.
The second half of the album slows and becomes more classical, finishing with a track entirely sung in English, All Alright, but it still doesn’t sound too much like English, making it all the more mysterious.
Recommended listening for herbalists, escapists and appreciators of beauty!
Lindsay Lohan reportedly plays the “passive wife” when she is with Samantha Ronson.
The 22-year-old actress - who is rumoured to dating DJ and singer Samantha - is said to adopt a submissive role in their alleged relationship.
A source told America’s Star magazine: “Lindsay and Samantha are totally playing house and loving every minute of it. And, yes, they share a bed!
“They both play certain roles. Lindsay is the passive one, the wife. It works for them!”
According to the magazine, the young couple also shop for sex toys together and have made a “bizarre” pact to stay thin.
Dear Lindsay Lohan,
I need some advice. I keep reading everywhere that you have become Samantha Ronson’s “passive wife”. First of all, what is a passive wife? Secondly, how can I get one?
I gained some inspiration from the “Good Wife’s Guide” and gave my girlfriend a list of a few easy, beginner requests:
Wash and iron my socks and wife beaters daily
Have a scotch ready when I walk in the door
Be completely silent when sport is on TV
Just “lie there” during sex
It didn’t work - she just thought I was joking. When I tried to convince her I was serious she just told me to F-off. Plus she isn’t super-rich like you, so she has to work and doesn’t have much spare time to be passive.
The thing that worries me a little bit is that if my girlfriend did ever become my passive wife, then I’d have to be a man. I mean the headline in that story says Samantha Ronson is “the man” in your relationship. Plus the chest-beating hairy guy at work claims that Ellen DeGeneres is “the man” in her relationship with Portia de Rossi, so it’s obviously a well documented fact.
So if I become “the man” in my relationship does that mean I have to cut my hair really short and wear a sock all the time? Or do I actually have to go through “the change”?
In which case, would I still be a lesbian at all? As from what I understand . . . a lesbian relationship involves at least two women, but no men.
So Lindsay, I never expected you to become the poster girl for my generation of lesbians, I mean you are always in rehab or crashing cars, your movies are crap and your music could afford to lose some of its pop. But I just don’t know where else to turn . . . so I would really appreciate it if you helped me out and answered my questions.
You probably need something to do other than lying around being passive all day anyway, right?
For the first time in what seems like a long while, I have found an album that I am listening to non-stop, continuously, addictively and without respite.
Welcome to the incredible world of Santogold.
I first came across this artist through Mark Ronson’s album Version, where she provides the vocals for Pretty Green.
Santogold has been described by Rolling Stone as a mix of M.I.A. and Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, plus plenty of 80s. And I mean really, really 80s. People who lived and loved music in the era say she sounds like Siouxsie Sioux.
From her debut album, I first heard the track L.E.S. Artistes (which is not about lesbians, but the Lower East Side). The song just bangs. Check it out:
It was Lights Out that hooked me. I can listen to that song on repeat, all the way into town on the train and halfway up the road to work. It’s just that good. It is so hot and sweet it makes me want to turn the lights out . . . so I probably shouldn’t really listen to it on the train. Well, you make up your own mind:
Her album has all the ingredients to make it practically perfect. It’s fresh and free and it pumps along, without any weak tracks.
She has emerged as a strong and original female musical wonder and I recommend picking up a copy of her album, which is self-titled.
Santogold is not afraid to stand up for who she is; an artist who is making music beyond genre. Sure there are electro, new-wave, indie, punk and synth elements, but it can’t really be defined in one label.
She has hit out at people who have tried to put her under the hip hop and R&B umbrella as racist, saying just because she is black, it doesn’t make her music hip hop or R&B. She says she isn’t even a big fan of either style!
If you want further proof of her versatility check out her collaboration with Pharrell Williams and Julian Casablancas from The Strokes called My Drive Thru:
So anyway share, what have you heard this year that has you wanting to jump up and down and shout?
Anyone who has seen her play at a Big Day Out will know the first lady of bisexuality puts on a bad ass show that is not to be missed.
She is playing The Powerstation on Thursday September 25 with a backing band from Berlin called Sweet Machine. Tickets go on sale July 9 from Real Groovy and Fast N Loose.
For now, I’ll just hum “I U She together, come on baby let’s go . . .”
The nerdy-looking Seattle boys who became indie pioneers have created a ride from start to finish with their sixth studio album, Narrow Stairs. It sounds like Death Cab For Cutie got together for a polished, intense jam session - and had more of a melodramatically-fun old time than they’ve had in their lives.
It is a self-indulgent soundtrack for down days, near break ups and unrequited love. Just the thing to listen to when you are wrapped up warm indoors and drinking red wine.
It opens with Bixby Canyon Bridge, a tune about singer Ben Gibbard’s search for a connection with his idol, writer Jack Kerouac, but becomes a taunting look at disillusionment. Gibbard apparently went to Bixby Canyon Bridge, where Kerouac wrote Big Sur, with the aim of writing music, but came away with little more than a frustrating case of writer’s block.
The second track, I Will Possess Your Heart hurtles through four and a half minutes of bass-driven instrumental, before Gibbard’s boy-next-door vocals burst in, to create an entire eight and a half minute ride that is more captivating than any average two minute radio-pop song. It tells the tale of an obsessive desire to be with someone who has rejected all advances, with the pleading line:
“You got to spend some time, love . . . You got to spend some time with me . . . And I know that you’ll find love . . . I will possess your heart”
Narrow Stairs begins with an upbeat pulse, but quickly becomes mellower. It is completely dripping with the sort of dark desperation that gives Death Cab For Cutie its wallowing edge.
The fifth track Talking Bird really slows it down, but it’s a track I kept coming back to, for its intensity and the underlying message in the words. The album finishes with the depressing The Ice Is Getting Thinner which compares the slow ending of a relationship to ice getting thinner beneath a couple.
While producer and guitarist Chris Walla describes Narrow Stairs as a curve ball - it’s one you’ll want to catch. However if you haven’t listened to Death Cab For Cutie before, maybe start with their 2005 album Plans.
There are no songs that can knock I Will Follow You into the Dark off its perch as my favourite EVER Death Cab For Cutie track . . . but there are a couple which come almost close:
Stand out tracks: BixbyCanyonBridge, I Will Possess your Heart, Talking Bird
(Matt Akersten has graciously handed me a pile of CDs which I will be reviewing over the next few weeks)
Since Amy Winehouse brought retro-jazz and soul back into fashion, there has been a steady stream of singers with a similar vocal style touted as “the next Amy Winehouse”. Gorgeous Australian 16-year-old Gabriella Cilmi is one such singer and has proved she’s plenty to write home about with her debut album Lessons To Be Learned. Her lead single Sweet About Me had all the catchy goods to make it to incessant play status on commercial radio, and her album has hence done pretty well in the charts.
Lessons To Be Learned has a real mix of style, from R&B and soul to rockier tracks, which keeps the album interesting. At the start of the album, there seems to be something a tiny bit overdone which makes me feel like the natural gorgeousness of her voice isn’t used to its full potential. However Lessons To Be Learned proves to have a rare ability to grab the ears more and more as it progresses, where many albums seem to fade after about five tracks. The almost Erykah Badu-esque style heard in Cigaretttes and Lies makes it the stand out track for me. Apparently, although Cilmi has songwriting credits, her music was co-written by British instant-pop hit production machine Xenomania, a writing team which is responsible for the likes of Girls Aloud.
At just 16, Cilmi has a developed and versatile voice. She is without some of the more dirty grit of Amy Winehouse, but she is also without the freaky eyelashes and substance problems (hopefully!). And with dire predictions circulating about about the health of emphysema-suffering Winehouse, someone may need to fill her wigs. Cilmi certainly has the potential to have a big future . . . but maybe leave the wigs and eyelashes alone, aye Gabriella? Standout tracks: Sweet About Me, Messy, Cigarettes and Lies, Sit in the Blues
Have you had a listen to Lessons To Be Learned? What do you think?
This weekend my girlfriend and I are celebrating our second anniversary, with two nights in a lavish inner-city hotel room in Auckland. While Friday we’ll probably stay indoors, on Saturday night we will head to Flirt’s third birthday. If you are a woman who likes women, who lives anywhere near Auckland, you should come to K Rd and support the third birthday of what has become a key event on the Auckland lesbian calendar. Congratulations to Sarah and Kelvery for making a lesbian night last for three years! It’s longer than the average dyke relationship . . . right?!
Apparently some girls from Girlfest, an annual event on the Gold Coast, are crossing the ditch especially to tell us all about the 2009 Girlfest. Sounds very tempting.
Flirt’s 3rd Birthday - Saturday June 21st- with DJs and live music - at Crest Bar (corner of K Rd and Pitt St) from 10pm, $10 cover charge.
Priscilla Queen of the Desert - The Musical, Civic Theatre, Auckland, May 28
There is just one word to describe Priscilla, The Musical - fabulous!
The stage adaptation takes all the heart of the original story from the 1994 classic movie, but with expansion in both the budget and music it takes it to a whole new level of camp fun.
From the gravity defying head-dresses, the divas descending from the rafters, the giddying costume changes, the $1 million specially made bus and a giant shoe that would put even Dorothy’s Sister to shame . . . it is a madly fun spectacle.
The gorgeous Daniel Scott is hilarious as Adam and his drag persona Felicia, with all the deliriously sharp shrieking tones of any truly over-the-top queen, while the classy Tony Sheldon perfectly creates Bernadette, the towering, widowed transsexual who finds love in the most unlikely place.
The story flows through one toes-tapping-and-hips-shaking-in-your-seat song after another, from I Will Survive and Go West, to at one stage almost becoming the “Priscilla Queen of the Dessert” with a wonderfully gratuitous dancing cupcake scene set to Donna Summer’s MacArthur Park.
Here’s a little taste:
While the cast members sing many of the pieces, they also lipsync while backed up by three “divas” who manage to keep smiling and emitting powerful vocals, while dangling from rooftop wires.
The crowd was full of the A-W list of Auckland celebrities and sprinkled with the wigs of local drag royalty. All were on their feet, dancing, singing and clapping as the curtain fell.
Priscilla is a must-see for anyone who likes a touch of fabulousness in their evening . . . but just one warning . . . watch out for flying ping pong balls!
I have been hard pressed to write, or do much at all, after finding the 5th season of The L Word on YouTube and trying to watch it all before it is possibly found and removed (ah!). It is such addictive watching, but seriously, is Jenny Schecter not the MOST annoying TV character since Fran Fine?
I don’t want to spoil too much of what is going on for anyone who has only seen up to the end of season four, or less, but let’s just say Jenny’s on an even mightier power trip than ever before. As so many fans have already said, why oh why did they kill off Dana and not Jenny? Oh Dana . . . (sighs)
It’s exciting times for Bette and Tina fans though . . . are they . . . maybe . . . will they get back together?! I am sooo in love with Miss Powerpants; Bette Porter. I’ve decided she’s my HOWILF (pronounced howwwl wolf) as in hot older woman I’d like ta . . . yeah.
In other movements, someone finds romance behind bars, someone else hits the headlines, while someone else entirely is annoying as hell (guess who?!)
There will apparently be just one more season of The L Word made and I seriously hope something new comes along afterwards, so I don’t have to be stuck watching The Box and just wishing it was a dyke channel, as the name so cruelly insinuates it could be.
I guess there is always Grey Anatomy, which I find pretty boring generally . . . but I hear there is a lesbian storyline happening involving that hot Dr Callie Torres. Did anyone see the elevator kiss? I’ll have to check it out. As long as they don’t move in together and try to have a baby next week (eek turkey basters!), I’ll take any lesbian storyline I can get.
Here’s the first part of the first episode from season five of The L Word anyway ladies (and all you guys who love The L Word after being introduced by your lesbian mates). The links to the next parts of the episode, and further episodes, pop up when you open it in YouTube. Watch it while you can!
I was getting a little morose, thinking after a dream Summer and Autumn, concert season had dried up. I feared all that would be on offer over winter would be the likes of Westlife, Panic at The Disco (now apparently without an exclamation mark, which doesn’t help anything) or even, God forbid, the freaking Ten Tenors (isn’t one enough!?)
Anyway, thanks to the awesomeness of Cheese on Toast and their pre-sale, I have two shiny tickets to see The Breeders in a courier bag on the way to my house. The Breeders feature Kim Deal, of the Pixies, who is perhaps one of the rockingest most talented women in rock history. It’s bound to be a cracking show. Having never seen The Breeders before, I am VERY excited.
Also in my concert diary are indie rockers Band of Horses, who are coming in July. If you haven’t heard these guys and their beautiful sound, do yourself a favour and check this out:
And finally rounding out my concert heaven, is the queen of my soul, the legendary Mary J Blige, who is making her first trip to New Zealand. Hopefully she pulls out some of those heart wrenching slow jams that were part of the soundtrack to my early-teens, like this one:
Oh and anyone going to see Elton tonight - have a wickedly camp time!
