Let’s see; what do I have to say music-wise…
Well, I played bass for a local (Dunedin, New Zealand) band called Utopia from about 1993–1997. Eventually we produced a 46-minute CD, of which only about 5 copies were ever made, so don’t expect to find it in stores! However, I do have an inclination to make copies of the songs available from this site in MP3 form, but I'd better consult with the other guys from the band first.
I also did a brief bass-playing stint for Smile, another Dunedin band, in mid-1998, and again in mid-1999. Smile have a cool new CD out entitled “Fear of Flying”, and another one in the pipeline already! I also helped build Smile’s Website.
These days I tend to play more guitar than bass, and I’ve been doing a bit of multitrack recording over the last few years, initially on my Amiga and more recently on my primary PC. You can download some bits and pieces of these, a mixture of original material and some slightly wry cover versions, encoded for your convenience as MP3 files.
If you’re interested, here’s a photo of the main music hardware I use. The guitar is a Cort Performer Series electric with a Roland GK-2A hexaphonic pickup that feeds into a Roland VG-8 unit (the big black “Stealth Bomber” deal on the right). The guitar’s conventional monophonic output goes into a Zoom 9002 effects processor (resting atop the VG-8), and both the VG-8 and the 9002 send their outputs into a Behringer Eurorack MX802A mixer (the silver box on the left of the VG-8), which finally feeds into the sound card in the PC. I run the two effects units in parallel like this because the 9002 nicely fleshes out the VG-8 sound for those high-gain distortion occasions.
Also possibly of interest: in February 2001 I got selected to play bass for “Southern Beatle” Neil Finn, at the Dunedin stage of his nationwide University orientation tour, which was extremely cool. I have a photo of the event taken by a photographer for the local newspaper, but it’s a copyrighted work and I would need permission to distribute it on this Website—hassle me if you’re interested.
Of course, I enjoy listening to music as well. My fave artists include:
No, not Oasis.
When the Foo Fighters’ self-titled debut album was released, I foolishly assumed that they would be a cheap Nirvana spin-off. Oh, I was so wrong: “Foo Fighters” is a consistenly great collection of songs—one of those albums that you can listen to from beginning to end and be pleased to meet each new song again.
Of course, “The Colour and the Shape” is also excellent, with better production than “Foo Fighters”, but I don’t feel that the songs are quite as good, overall.
Deceptively sweet and simple songs express heartfelt and often tragic emotion. She can also rock out with the best of them. Thanks, Juliana, you’ve “kicked this boy and taught him how to cry”. :^)
I have three photos from Juliana’s high school yearbook; these were originally scanned and posted by someone else to the Juliana Hatfield Mailing List.
Killing Joke’s 1994 release “Pandemonium” comes pretty close to hard rock perfection. No cheese, lots of angry Jaz Coleman, and gutsy production, with bits of electronica and eastern influences. Hey, it was recorded in part in the Great Pyramid, Egypt!
Consistently dark, teeth-gritting metal. Great production talent from Bob Rock. For a long time, they were the best in their genre, in my opinion. I figure their greatness in their genre is primarily because they never strayed into rude arena-rock antics, and possibly because they never did a love song. Hella fun.
Everyone’s perennial favourite grungesters. Smarter than you’d think.
Extremely talented but sadly now defunct New Zealand band, based in Dunedin for a long time, and often cited as exponents of the supposed “Dunedin Sound”. Their songs are extremely well put together, both musically and lyrically, and always played with such conviction! There’s a good Verlaines site here.
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This document last modified and © 2001-12-11 13:37:55 NZDT
