To Be Still with Alela Diane

Another artist that has slowly crept her way into my heart over the past year is Alela Diane, whose sparse, haunting debut album The Pirate's Gospel was a quietly beguiling affair that seemed equally influenced by English folk and Appalachian music.

Don McGlashan at The Borderline

This cool photo is from nznewsuk

Don McGlashan

The Borderline, 22 January 2009

Performing acoustically but this time flying solo, was former frontman of one of New Zealand's finest ever musical exports, The Mutton Birds, Mr Don McGlashan.

Dulli & Lanegan at the Union Chapel

 

An Evening With Greg Dulli & Mark Lanegan

Duke Garwood

Union Chapel, 19 January 2009

Anyone who knows me can tell you I have a long time love affair with Mr Dulli, the dashing larger than life (literally these days) former frontman of The Afghan Whigs, current Twilight Singer and one half of The Gutter Twins. He was once described as "the Dean Martin of grunge" but Greg is way more sassy than that, unafraid to cut down hecklers with a single witty line and shake his booty, funky-style, that's part Prince, part embarrassing dad at a wedding. The collaboration with his best pal Lanegan has been a long time coming, and certainly worth the wait on record, but live so far the results have been mixed due to Lanegan's towering, silent stage presence that prefers to let his booming voice make up for the lack of any charismatic chats or interaction with the audience.

Geddy Lee Interview

One of the first rock shows I ever attended (courtesy of my older brother and his friends) was Canadian superstars Rush at Wembley Arena. Along with the band’s trademark virtuoso playing on epic rock tracks like Tom Sawyer and Closer To The Heart, there were huge inflatable bunny rabbits, animated and funny films that played between songs and a space-age light show that was almost blinding. Let's just say that, not surprisingly, a unique experience like that left its mark on me. Late last year I was lucky enough to briefly speak to the voice, and bassist extraordinaire, of Rush: Mr Geddy Lee. That's right, GEDDY LEE, and yes, Pavement, he speaks like an ordinary, but rather nice, guy. It was concerning the band's latest impressive DVD release Snakes & Arrows Live, a three-disc concert of their most recent tour. It's a pretty cool document of the tour but as always with Rush, they've put together something a little more special with the band showing off their comic side, as seen in the concert's opening segment that sees Geddy dressed as a mad Scotsman and guitarist Alex Lifeson hamming it up as a crazy green-faced Indian guru.

The opening sequence and little films are such fun. Are you guys wannabe actors?

[Laughs] I guess reluctantly, well, not so reluctantly actually, we’ve embraced the goofier side of ourselves. I’m afraid me and my team of idiots are to blame for that.