Rock & Roll | Issue 09

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the rock & roll issue

contents weekly content 4. Letters 6. News 33. VUWSA 3 6 . C r e at i v e 37. Arts 43. Odds and Ends

columns 1 5 . R a m b l i n g s o f a Fa l l e n H a c k 16. Bone Zone with Cupie Hoodwink 17. Sports Banter 3 0 . We i r d I n t e r n e t S h i t 30. Conspiracy Corner 31. Food 32. C B T 3 2 . M ao r i M at t e r s 3 3 . Th e I n t r e p i d V C G u i l f o r d 3 4 . A rt i c u l at e d S p l i n e s 34. Bent 35. Shirt and Sweet with Eleanor Merton 3 5 . Fa s h i o n

features 1 8 . Wh o t h e f u c k i s D a m o n A l b a r n ?

1 9 . Wh o t h e f u c k i s J a m e s M i l n e ?

2 0 . M u s i c ’s f o r t h e S a d M a n 22. Raging Against the Machine 2 4 . Ava n t - G a r d e a C lu e 2 6 . Wh at e v e r p e o p l e s ay I a m , t h at ’s w h at I ’m n o t 2 9 . D o g Day s a re O ve r

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Cam spends most evenings listening to or playing along to music. Duncan passes his weekends awkwardly moving to Beyoncé. The beauty of music isn’t just that we all love it. It’s that we all love it in our own individual ways.

interact with music? Will SoundCloud give struggling artists the leg-up they need? Will the internet make the radio star?

We don’t know. But we are very excited to listen to all the songs that haven’t been made yet.

Ro ck o n,

Du ncan & Cam

What We’re Listening to:

P

oetry is great, but it’s often inaccessible. Add a beat, some rhythm and a couple of instruments, though, and poetry is transformed into something we can all get behind. Music.

Music suits any occasion. Pissed off? Listen to an angry song.

In love? Try a ballad. Down in the dumps? Take a sad song, and make it better. Making love? ‘Let’s Get It On’. Music’s more than just something that we listen to, it’s something that we feel.

In this week’s magazine, we have an exclusive interview with the bassist from the Arctic Monkeys, Nick O’Malley. It was probably the most exciting thing to happen to us in our lives.

Chief feature writer Phil introduces us to some trippy tunes so that we can broaden our tastes. Penny explains the link between tragedy and music. Elise explores the way music has been used as a political tool of resistance. It’s New Zealand Music Month, so we interviewed Lawrence Arabia to celebrate some of the amazing music that New Zealanders make. Henry writes about the death of Mighty Mighty and Puppies and asks whether that’s it for the Wellington music scene. Jamie writes about Damon Albarn, the man behind Blur and Gorillaz.

Music is the soundtrack of our times. You can’t think about the ‘60s without thinking of the music. Listen to just about any song from the ‘90s, and you’ll be transported instantly back to your childhood. Music triggers memories of fondness, joy, sadness. It gives us the warm fuzzies (sometimes).

Artists today are picking up on the good vibrations in society.

Things are looking up after a couple of pretty shit years, and you can tell by the swagger and confidence and sexiness of all the new music that is coming out. Think Daft Punk, Kanye, Beyoncé, Arctic Monkeys. Music is groovy again, and we like it.

We’ve had records, then we had tapes, then CDs and now MP3s, so what’s next? How will Spotify change the way we

Cam’s To p s o ng o f all t im e : ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ by the Beatles To p 3 Band s o f all t im e t hat are n’t t he B e at le s : - The Checks - The Strokes - The Arctic Monkeys Duncan’s To p s o ngs RI GHT NOW: - ‘Something Beautiful’ by Robbie Williams - ‘These Arms of Mine’ by Otis Redding - ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ by the Arctic Monkeys Favo u rit e art is ts inclu d e bu t are not lim it e d to: - The Black Keys - Beyoncé - Otis Redding Imogen’s (the designer) To p t hre e s o ngs o f all t im e : - ‘505’ by the Arctic Monkeys - ‘Coming Up Easy’ by Paolo Nutini - ‘Everywhere’ by Michelle Branch To p t hre e s o ngs right now: - ‘Touch’ by Shura - ‘Better Man’ by Paolo Nutini - ‘Fade Into You’ by Mazzy Star

editor@salient.org.nz

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letter of the week Victoria’s Secret enjoyed the latest salient... after reading the article about Glyde Healthcare bringing the FC2 Female condom to the NZ market for the first time, I checked out their website to find numerous pages on their site blocked by Victoria Universitythe explanation for this is: “Your request was denied because of its content categorization: “Adult/Mature Content””.

Are we not mature adults at Victoria? Why do we need to sensor student searches? especially when it limits legitimate pages that are beneficial to students.

Just thought i’d bring this to your attention today.

Regards Ben

WIN FREE COFFEE Are you angry, elated or apathetic about Salient? Send us a letter of less than 250 words to editor@salient.org.nz. Pseudonyms are fine, but all letters must include your real name, address and telephone number.

These will not be printed. Letters will not be corrected for spelling or grammar. The Editors reserve the right to edit, abridge or decline any letters. The letter of the week wins a coffee from Vic Books.

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Cam’s a depressed Maori drug addict Dear Duncan and Cam, It is fantastic that you are both taking full advantage of an opportunity - as Editors to zealously express your beliefs about drug laws and usage in New Zealand. However, in presenting almost exclusively positive effects of drug use you have misrepresented the reality of drug-affected circumstances for a vast number of users.

As white, middle class, well-educated individuals, you and your peers have almost uninhibited access to medical care, emotional support networks, and disposable income. Of course there will be little, if any, negative outcomes of your drug taking. By not giving adequate consideration to the marginalised members of society who struggle with addiction, depression, and disease from drug use, you dismiss their experiences as less relevant than your own and present a narrowminded view of an extremely diverse and subjective topic.

Your focus on the indeed relatively harmless drug marijuana also contributes to a utopian view of drug use. It does not account for the myriad of other substances, and acquisition of those substances, which create far higher damage to individuals and communities; thus arguably requiring far higher acknowledgement than was presented in the magazine.

Regards, Avid Reader And Occasional Toker

420 4eva Dear Salient Last week’s issue clarified an opinion I’ve held for a while. Drugs have become way too mainstream. Once they were a

symbol of anti-establishment freedom, now most of our politicians have joined the green revolution. Which shows the revolution is dead my friends, the tinny has burnt out. The outrage is as artificial as the drugs debated. There isn’t going to be another Bob Marley high roller fighting for the cannabis cause because the bedrock of the counter culture has crumbled like dry buds. We can either get anxious and depressed or we can start over. Creating a new counter culture that will make societies temple slick with subversive sweat once again. Something bizarre and not at all tasteful. The solution came to me in a cheese dream: that we shall not be meekly assimilated into society, we shall revolt anew, by eating disgusting amounts of cheddar and baffling everyone with visions of the like never described before!!!

Regards From the subversive garden of Edam

Missed Connection Dear Uni wifi You’re breaking up with me? One moment we seemed so connected and suddenly I’m cut off! You’re so artificial.

Yet why should I care? I know loads willing to fulfill my internet needs. Maybe I’ll reconnect with my old friend dial up. A musician, unlike you. We’ll spend hours together and my phones going to be so busy.

Regards Someone who’s virtually moved on

There is one major thing that I believe Sailent is missing, aside from more pictures, and funny things that lectures say, which would be cat photos.

Anyways, because I understand that the next issue focuses with music, I would like to make a plea that you would consider throwing in a picture of my Cayla somewhere. I know I’m no photography professional (hence I don’t do any artrelated papers) but I feel that this is totally relevant, cute and possible up to standard.

I would like to suggest that you start a column thing for people such as myself who occasionally are able to whip out something, and encourage more art related things. Maybe competitions to design a page, or something. You know good procrastinating tasks :P Anyways, some people aren’t terribly good with writing, and I thought I would voice my opinion.

If nothing else, I have allowed you a rare glimpse into the spunkiest cat you’ll ever hear about, who is able to open doors and sit on shoulders like a parrot. - Maybe there should be a column “Kitty shenanigans” ;) Anyways thanks for bothering to read this far

Paws for concern Dear Sailent, I may come across as one of though middle-aged crazy cat women, but I would like to assure you that I am a first year, fresh from high-school and only have one cat, (the family pet) which currently is residing from my home town in Whangarei.

editor@salient.org.nz

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PEOPLE OF LAST WEEK 276 girls.

O n 16 April, the militant Islamist Nigerian terrorist group B oko H aram abducted 276 girls preparing to sit their final exams from their government - run boarding school in C hibok in northern N igeria . 223 remain missing , after 53 escaped .

The terrorist group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, threatened to sell the girls in a grainy video released this week .

Reports

last week said that some of the girls

“marry” their abductors. Others are reported to have been taken across borders into C ameroon and C had .

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan did not publicly comment on the abductions for two weeks , and the government ’ s clumsy handling of the case has triggered protests across almost every major city . #BringBackOur Girls is now trending on Twitter, castigating not only the N igerian state , but the international press for its disinterest in this tragedy .

These girls have been missing for over three weeks; the least we can do is pay attention . had been forced to

BY THE NUMBERS

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The number of delicious cookbooks written by Nigella Lawson.

12 0 , 0 0 0

The number of copies of the Arctic Monkeys’ debut album sold on the first day of release in the UK, making it the fastest-selling debut album in British history.

61 %

The percentage of abortions in the US carried out on women who have one or more children.

11 . 2 %

The new global poverty rate, down from 19.7 per cent.

This change is largely attributable to improvements in China’s and India’s GDPs.

Over 1

million

The number of records sold by Lorde, making her the first woman since Adele to sell more than a million copies of a debut album.

2000

The year in which students who started high school this year were born.

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K een

eye for news ?

S end

NEWS

any tips , leads or gossip to news @ salient . org . nz

STUDENTS GET BOARD

Prior to the VSM legislation, VUWSA had six seats on the Academic Board.

THANKS SONYA! There will be six seats for student representatives again, but just three for VUWSA, including one non-executive member, class representative

by Simon Dennis Louisa Hormann. There is also one Ngāi Tauira seat, one for the Pasifika Students’ Council and another for the Postgraduate Students’ Association. tudent representatives can vote on the Academic Board again for the Director of Student Academic Services, Pam Thorburn, said the twofirst time since 2012, after the University Council reinstated their full year gap in student representation on the Board “results from the need to membership last Monday. consult widely on the student-representation model.”

At the end of 2011, Voluntary Student Membership (VSM) “This was a student-led consultation carried out in partnership with saw Victoria University introduce the Student Forum and replace the University.”

VUWSA representatives on the Academic Board with Student Forum “Following that consultation, formal approval processes were required, representatives. The Student Forum was run by the University, and and these also took time to complete.” included students who had not been elected but rather chosen by the When asked whether the decisions taken by the Board could be seen as University. legitimate given the absence of student input, Thorburn said the Statute VUWSA, Ngāi Tauira and the Pasifika Students’ Council withdrew permitted it. from the Forum in early 2013 because of concerns about the nature of the “Clause 4.7(g) of [the Academic Board Statute] provides that ‘no act or Student Forum, as they felt it was not representative. The Forum therefore proceeding of the Board, or of any committee of it…[will] be invalidated could not meet quorum, leading to its eventual disestablishment. in consequence of there being a vacancy in the number of the Board’”.

The statute was then changed back to reinstate student representatives Thorburn further said that even though student representatives were from VUWSA and other groups, but these representatives did not not formally recognised on the Board, opinions and comments were still have voting rights until last Monday. Student representatives attended able to be posed.

Academic Board meetings in 2013 and twice so far in 2014, though VUWSA President Sonya Clark said she was “stoked that the student they have not been allowed to vote or stay for confidential parts of the voice has been properly restored to Academic meeting.

Board.”

The Academic Board advises the “It’s taken almost a year and a half, but 2012 University Council on matters relating to the last time student we can finally say goodbye to the Student courses of study, awards, and other academic representatives were able to vote Forum and welcome an independent, matters. at Academic Board meetings. authentic student voice at Academic Board.

It approves all academic changes made Student voices in decision-making have within the University, such as changes to the 10 to be independent from the University to meetings of the Academic Board assessment handbook and this year’s grading ensure students can speak freely about their where student representatives changes, as well as approving all new degrees have been prevented from voting. experiences.” or papers and conducting faculty reviews.

Victoria University was the only university The most recent faculty review into the 6 in the country to change its statute to remove School of Political Science and International seats that student representatives student representatives from the Academic Relations saw 300-level tutorials introduced, now have on Academic Board.

Board. something students have been asking for for years.

S

Simon Dennis’ favourite songs 1. ‘Five Years’ - David Bowie 2. ‘Welcome to the Machine’ - Pink Floyd 3. ‘The Trapeze Swinger’ - Iron and Wine

editor@salient.org.nz

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NEWS FEATURE

EVA ENGLER

IS THE UNIVERSITY PUTTING STUDENTS AT RISK?

by Sophie Boot

E

va Engler, a German Master’s student on a scholarship to Victoria, moved into University accommodation, room 6 at 41 Salamanca Rd, in February 2013.

The University-run house she moved into had been treated on 11 January for fleas, using KB40, an insecticide, as well as Starycide, an insect growth regulator. KB40 is a highly concentrated insecticide which contains high levels of very small particles of beta-cyfluthrin.

It is classified as a hazardous substance and can only be bought by people with an Approved Handler Certificate.

On 25 February, shortly after moving in, Eva emailed the University Hall management saying that her room was full of “white animal hair, fleas and blue fuzz.” She vacuumed the room for “quite a long time” as the room had not been cleaned after the flea treatment.

University Hall management apologised for “this huge oversight on our part”, and credited Eva with the cost that cleaners would have charged to vacuum the room.

Two weeks later, on 11 March, Eva went to Student Health with complaints about pain in her knees. According to the doctor’s reports, Eva had been a “keen runner”, regularly running 12 km up to four times a week, but had found herself unable to run since coming to New Zealand. The doctors could find no injury or explanation for her pain. Eva’s health continued to deteriorate, with a “permanent cough” and worsening knee pain, as well as tingling, twitching and sharp pains across her body and extreme tiredness. She also found that her eyes were very irritated and she was unable to focus.

Eva’s health became so bad that she was flown back to Germany in August 2013 under paramedic supervision, giving up her scholarship and Master’s study. Doctors in Germany were unable to diagnose Eva’s symptoms until November, when the breakdown metabolites of beta-cyfluthrin (the active ingredient in KB40) were detected in Eva’s urine.

The level of beta-cyfluthrin – 1.2 μg/l – in Eva’s urine was described by her German doctor, Dr Peter Ohnsorge, head of the German Professional Association of Environmental Medicine and the European Academy for Environmental Medicine, as “all the more alarming, because there has been no more contact with these substances for some time, and it is known that the metabolism is no

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longer detectable in the urine within 24 hours.”

The half-life of beta-cyfluthrin means that, when it is used at approved levels, traces disappear from urine within 24 hours. Dr Ohnsorge concluded that “extensive further examinations” had found no other cause for Eva’s health issues, and that Eva’s pain and physical therapy will continue for the next four years.

The KB40 Safety Data Sheet describes the substance as harmful if inhaled, harmful to terrestrial vertebrates, and says it “may cause damage to organs through prolonged or repeated exposure.” It describes the potential symptoms of ingesting the substance as: “burning sensations in the mouth, headache, dizziness, drowsiness, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, listlessness, stomach pain, muscular twitching of arms or legs.”

It also says that effects from inhalation of high vapour concentrations can cause effects similar to that of ingestion. Prolonged exposure “may result in central nervous-system effects such as tremors, uncoordination and disorientation.”

The University has denied any wrongdoing. The pest-management company hired by the University to treat the house say that they sprayed the house using KB40 diluted at 10mL/litre, using 15 litres (thus 150mL of KB40) across the house, which is standard. They say that KB40 is a “low-toxicity low-odour synthetic pyrethroid with short residuals”, and that the house was safe to re-enter four hours after being sprayed.

Jenny Bentley, Director of Campus Services, told Salient that the University has checked that the flea treatment used complied with all New Zealand requirements.

“The University responded to a Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment request relating to this issue late last year. That investigation has now been closed. It is deeply distressing that the student has suffered such a severe setback to her studies, and staff at the University have kept in contact and offered support for the student’s return.”

However, Eva says that her flatmate was supposed to move into room 6, the room that she eventually moved into, but that it was

NEWS FEATURE

DIVERSITY THE WRITE CHOICE IIML INTRODUCES COURSE ON MĀORI AND PASIFIKA WRITING

by Steph Trengrove too full of fleas. She says that nobody was permitted to enter the house for around two weeks after the house was treated by exterminators, and that room 6 was inaccessible for even longer, which lead to her flatmate living elsewhere and thus not moving into room 6. Eva said that her flatmate also experienced some tingling symptoms. Salient has so far been unable to contact this flatmate to corroborate these allegations.

Eva believes that her room not being cleaned after KB40 was applied, and the resulting need for her to “vigorously vacuum-clean”, had led to her inhaling high quantities of beta-cyfluthrin. Her toxicologists can find no other explanation for the high quantity of beta-cyfluthrin which remains in her system. Eva remains in a great deal of pain, and faces four years of rehabilitation.

V

ictoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) has introduced a pioneering course on creative writing from Māori and Pasifika perspectives to its programme.

Titled ‘Te Hiringa a Tuhi’, the course will cater to students interested in writing fiction, poetry or creative non-fiction informed by Māori or Pasifika viewpoints, cultures and origins, the process of colonisation, or questions around identity and belonging.

Victoria University Creative Writing graduate Dr Tina Makereti will be taking the course, and said that her focus will be on “engaging with the questions many of us encounter when writing creatively and thinking about culture… trying new forms and figuring out how to simply produce good writing.”

Dr Makereti has won several accolades for her work, including the Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards Fiction Prize in 2011, the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing (Non-Fiction) in 2009, and the Pikihuia Award for Best Short Story Written in English, also in 2009.

Professor Damien Wilkins, Director of the IIML, hopes that the introduction of the course will provide Māori and Pasifika students with a new and appealing avenue of study.

“Our hope is that Māori and Pasifika writers who haven’t previously considered studying Creative Writing will respond to this terrific opportunity.”

Applications for the Trimester Two course are now open. The course is limited to 12 places.

editor@salient.org.nz

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NEWS

AN INTERVIEW WITH STUDENT HEALTH

by Sophie Boot Last Tuesday, Salient sat down with Student Health’s new Intake Counsellor, Linda Robertson, as well as Gerard Hoffman, the Manager of Student Counselling, and Rachel Riedel, Victoria’s Wellbeing Educator, to have a chat about the changing role of the service.

who came in yesterday [last Monday] has an appointment with me this week.

THE NEW INTAKE COUNSELLOR ON HER ROLE

HOW DOES STUDENT HEALTH PRIORITISE COUNSELLING?

LINDA: At the moment I am seeing approximately 24 students a week. Tuesdays, I haven’t got clients at the moment. [On Tuesday afternoons] I am researching all the different agencies and options available to students that might meet their needs so I can help students when they come in.

GERARD: It’s about how much of our resource we are pitching towards a very immediate response. So we have got a bit under ten full-time equivalent counsellors, and at the moment we have about 25 per cent of them who are same-day available. 75 per cent of our resources is for follow-up. That for me is a reasonable balance. If you think about an ED equivalent, if all you have is EDs then people wouldn’t be getting their non-urgent but important health needs met.

The purpose for me and the client in that session is to hear about what’s going on for the student, and figure out what are some first steps or resources that might be useful for the student. So they have something that they can either take away and hopefully make use of, or we might equip the student with new strategies that they haven’t really thought of. Or other services that the University offers, either in place of further counselling, or to go alongside their counselling.

Hopefully, by the end of a 30-minute session, the student is leaving with some kind of an action plan.

With the student, we will figure out if counselling is going to be the most useful thing from here, or will one of the group programmes that we offer be a better first step, or is there one of the Student Learning Support things that they could pick up. It’s just trying to figure out what is going to give the student the best resourcing or options that might help them.

Gerard: We haven’t been in that position for years. That’s fantastic.

DOES STUDENT HEALTH HAVE SUFFICIENT UNIVERSITY FUNDING? GERARD: We were the only service that got extra money out of the Levy this year from last year. And I think that was a little bit arbitrary; I think you could have equally justified giving more money to some of the other services. Student Finance do a hell of a good job with quite a small chunk of resource. Every health service has this dilemma. This has given us the chance to do something innovative without having to cut from somewhere else in our team. If we had more, we would do something with it.

I think we also have to look at how we are relatively funded compared to other unis. And we are very well-funded. I think we have been incredibly well-supported by the University. If we got more funding, then we would probably look to do a bit more for Linda’s role.

GERARD ON THE NEW INTAKE COUNSELLOR

WHAT IS RACHEL’S ROLE?

For the first few weeks, Linda has just been dealing with backlog.

What we are assuming is that it is much better for a student to meet someone within the first couple of days, even if it is just for 30 mins or something, than wait up to six weeks to see somebody. And the early evidence is that it is exactly true. They are coming in and getting a hearing getting some initial solutions.

RACHEL: My job is to look at an organisation and go, how can I promote wellbeing here? How do we promote wellbeing in a way that is easy and simple, because most students and staff are time-poor?

A big chunk of people coming in are coming in due to stress and anxiety. On day one of the return to University, 25 people approached Student Health looking for counselling.

I have a student wellbeing group. Basically, I coordinate the group but students come up with the ideas. We wanted to create awareness that taking time out for yourself is really important. So we are doing Student Wellbeing Week [this week].

WHAT IS THE WAIT TIME TO SEE THE INTAKE COUNSELLOR?

Part of what we are doing is a common language around wellbeing, so everyone knows what we are talking about. Well here are seven steps that we stick to. Lecturers, here is a slide you can use about self-care.

LINDA: Because I have been catching up on the backlog, I have been booked out for quite a long time in advance. However, that is shifting now and as of this week, it’s pretty much one to three days. Everyone

I think wellbeing is everyone’s business. I see wellbeing-promotion as part of the broader of what is going on around us. If you look at wellbeing on a spectrum, then I think we have a lot of students in

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NEWS

the middle. My aim is to shift them from average wellbeing to aboveaverage wellbeing. We get wellbeing scores as part of the Student Experience Survey. Over time I would like to see a shift in terms of that. That’s the hope.

DOES THE GOVERNMENT FUND MENTAL-HEALTH SERVICES ENOUGH? GERARD: I have seen some really powerful facts that say that a massive amount of our funding gets put towards the elderly. Most young people are not accessing physical-health high-cost care, for obvious reasons. They are also the group that is most impacted by mental health. Yet a tiny part of the health budget goes to mental

health. Arguably, we are seeing people who have massive mental-health needs. They don’t have physical-health needs. The Government has increased in the last decade the amount of money that goes towards youth mental health. They are big into youth. But we don’t quite fit into youth [too old, 12–18]. Our students miss out, to some degree.

There are any number of psychologists these days. But they charge upwards of $150 an hour, which is out of the reach of most of us. It’s an issue, but we are doing better than we ever had. We have chosen to focus on our community. Our job is not to make students feel better today, it is to give students the capacity to live through life. That is what is going to give them happy lives, not getting a degree.

THE STATE OF STUDENT COUNSELLING WHAT HELP IS AVAILABLE IN WELLINGTON? - Student Health: Student Health has a duty counsellor available daily for urgent appointments and for brief appointments focussed around academic issues. There is also an intake counsellor, who aims to see all clients within one to three days, and counsellors available for appointments with a wait time of one to three weeks. These services are free to all domestic and NZAid students.

- Wellington Anxiety Specialists: A new clinic, they provide both paid counselling and help with accessing up to 30 sessions of government-funded anxiety counselling for tertiary students. They can be contacted online at http://w-a-s.co.nz/ or directly on (04) 386 3861.

- Capital and Coast DHB services: these include inpatient and outpatient services, alcohol and drug services and services targeted towards young people, Māori and Pasifika. A full list of services is available at .

- In an emergency, if you feel you or someone else is at risk of harm, phone 111, go to your nearest hospital emergency department, or phone the CATT (Crisis Assessment & Treatment Team) on (04) 494 9169.

HELPLINES The Depression Helpline (0800 111 757) Healthline (0800 611 116) Lifeline (0800 543 354) Samaritans (0800 726 666) Youthline (0800 376 633) Alcohol Drug Helpline (0800 787 797)

ALL ANXIETY, MOOD AND SUBSTANCEABUSE DISORDERS ARE MOST COMMON IN 16–24-YEAR-OLDS AND DECLINE WITH AGE. YOUNG MĀORI MEN ARE A VERY HIGH-RISK GROUP. IN 2009/10, THE MĀORI MALE RATE OF MENTAL DISORDERS HAD INCREASED BY 56 PER CENT FROM THE EQUIVALENT 2001/02 RATE. YOUNG PEOPLE’S USE OF MENTAL-HEALTH SERVICES IS INCREASING.

AROUND ONE IN FIVE NEW ZEALANDERS BETWEEN 2006/7 AND 2009/10, MENTALEXPERIENCE A COMMON MENTAL DISORDER HEALTH CLIENTS SEEN BY DHBS AGED 15–24 (DEPRESSION, BIPOLAR DISORDER, ANXIETY INCREASED BY 24 PER CENT. DISORDER) EVERY YEAR. THERE IS SIGNIFICANT UNMET NEED FOR IN 2012/13, UP TO 611,000 NEW ZEALANDERS PEOPLE WITH MENTAL DISORDERS. WERE DIAGNOSED WITH COMMON MENTAL DISORDERS. OVER A 12-MONTH PERIOD, ONLY 39 PER CENT OF PEOPLE WITH A MENTAL DISORDER YOUNG PEOPLE ARE PARTICULARLY AT RISK. WILL VISIT HEALTH SERVICES.

editor@salient.org.nz

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NEWS

EYE ON EXEC

CAMPUS DIGEST

BY ELISE MUNDEN

Student Health is offering free flu vaccines until the end of June. Did you know that on average in New Zealand, 400 people die each year from the flu? It affects young, healthy people. You are more at risk if you have asthma, diabetes, or other long-term health conditions. Immunisation will give you ten to 80 per cent protection against the flu strains in the vaccine. You will be protected ten to 15 days after having the vaccination, so get immunised before an outbreak.

Ivana Giacon has proved that you cannot be too old or too short to win a national rowing competition. These were the challenges faced by 22-year-old Giacon at the 2014 New Zealand Rowing Championships, where she won gold in the senior single sculls. She claimed the title just one week before handing in her Master’s thesis in Environmental Studies.

Ivana has been managing the pressure of being “not the most naturally talented rower” (lies) alongside full-time study and part-time work. What an inspiration: Salient congratulates her on her success.

Victoria University entomologist Dr Phil Lester has informed New Zealanders of the growing threat posed by wasps. We have the largest concentration of wasps in the world, and this is affecting native insects and primary industries. Like most problems, extra funding is required to seek out methods of controlling the wasp population. This is good news to me personally, as I am genuinely afraid of wasps and am feeling nauseous just writing this.

Not one but two car crashes occurred around the Kelburn campus on the first day back at term, amid poor weather.

Nobody was seriously injured.

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T

he latest VUWSA Exec meeting was a long one, largely because of the passing of the VUWSA Budget – which is far earlier than last year. The meeting opened at 6.15 with Sonya burning her tongue on some rogue tea, but it was all up from there.

There was no report from VUWSA’s General Manager, Mark, as he was sick. The Exec then discussed the job description for VUWSA’s event manager, who is yet to be hired. This devolved into discussion of VUWSA’s status as a registered charity – Sonya said it was, Rick believed it wasn’t – but Sonya kept the meeting on track.

Next up was Sonya’s President’s Report. She discussed media coverage of the Boyd-Wilson path, and further action to be taken there, including VUWSA initiating a meeting with the WCC and Police. She then talked about the recent attention to proposed changes to the bus route, and positive responses from Councillor Nicola Young. Next was the University’s strategic planning, as the University is currently drawing up its new five-year plan. Also discussed was the work being done with MAWSA for Re-O Week, the potential for the career expo as a recruiting ground for future student politicians, and VUWSA’s recent reinstatement as voting members of the Academic Board.

Rick Zwaan, Welfare Vice-President, was next up with his report. He talked about student safety on campus, including a Take Back The Night march to be organised, bus routes, rental warrants of fitness and Stress Free Study Week. No further mention was made of puppies, but Salient will be following this up.

Discussion then turned to the beleaguered VBC, and the winding up of the VB Trust so that VUWSA could assume control of the station.

The VBT has around $3000 of IRD debt which Sonya was hopeful they would be able to avoid paying, but said this was a “small price to pay” to deal with the issue. Rick queried this, saying “we could do nothing”.

Super Duper Toby Cooper earned his nickname with detailed results from investigation of the potential utility of a VUWSA van. There was a little uncertainty as to what had happened to the previous van – was it abandoned on the Desert Road? – but ultimately the VUWSA Exec said that they wanted various alternatives costed, and approved whichever alternative was most cost-effective in principle.

They then moved into the interesting part of the meeting – the Budget – but that was in committee, meaning Salient cannot report on it.

However, we can report that Vic Books will be getting a Snapper top-up machine. Better living.

NEWS

NEWS OF THE WORLD

BY ALICE PEACOCK

iPredict is a market-based political and economic prediction market owned and operated by Victoria University of Wellington. Visit www.ipredict.co.nz to get involved. Probabilities are correct at time of publication.

W O MAN THR ILL ED WITH HER V ERY OW N SN AK E ON A PL AN E

A particularly loud initiation into the Mile High Club was busted by cabin-crew members during a Virgin Airlines flight from London to Las Vegas last week.

An intoxicated woman was reportedly getting frisky with the man seated next to her, before retreating to a restroom where loud sex noises gave the pair’s antics away.

Cabin crew, who proceeded to cuff the irate young woman to her seat, broke up this very un-virgin frolicking. The woman was said by fellow passengers to be in her 20s and travelling with her parents.

This is not the first incident in or airline on which friskiness has come from the passengers’ end; in February, Delta Airlines was forced to divert a flight due to a passenger’s sexual forthcomings.

P UTIN INITIATES N ATIONWIDE S W E AR J AR

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on Monday 5 May levying steep fines for both individuals and organisations exhibiting potty-mouthed behaviour.

The law, banning swearing in films, music and public performances, extends to individuals attending cultural performances in the country.

Fines for organisations may be as high as $1600, while individual offences will call for fines of around $80.

While Putin intends for the legislation to protect and develop Russia’s language culture, opponents of the President, along with enthusiasts of the profane, have criticised the move as limiting freedom of speech.

It is yet to be clarified what is classified as a swear word, or whether the ban will extend to encompass Russian users of social media.

70% REPUBLICANS TO WIN MAJORITY IN SENATE IN 2014 ELECTIONS.

91% REPUBLICANS TO WIN MAJORITY IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN 2014 ELECTIONS.

30% DEMOCRATS TO WIN MAJORITY IN SENATE IN 2014 ELECTIONS.

O NLIN E PICK -UP QU ITE FR A NC-LY E M B AR R ASSI N G

Actor James Franco has publicly apologised and confessed embarrassment after being caught out attempting to seduce a Scottish teenager online.

Blonde teenager Lucy Clode ran into Franco in New York on an 18th-birthday trip with her mother. The teen posted a short video of their encounter on the iPhone application Instagram, catching Franco’s attention and sparking a short-lived Insta-romance.

Cringeworthy chat-up lines from the Spiderman actor were leaked and made viral following an exchange of messages through the new Instagram messaging capability. Franco admitted to sending messages to the 17-year-old Scot while on the talk show Live with Kelly and Michael, and has declared himself an example of “how not to use social media”.

Clode’s Instagram account was later deleted, and it is said that the pair did not follow up on James’ request to get together.

Franco tweeted last Wednesday: “I HOPE PARENTS KEEP THEIR TEENAGERS AWAY FROM ME. Thank you.”

It seems likely that parents will do just this, with a public comment from Clode’s 84-year-old grandmother stating that Franco “ought to get a slap on the wrist.”

9% DEMOCRATS TO WIN MAJORITY IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN 2014 ELECTIONS.

5.4% JOHN BOEHNER TO DEPART AS SPEAKER BEFORE NEXT ELECTION.

editor@salient.org.nz

13

SPEAK UP one of twenty $100 New World vouchers and one of two MacBook Pros.

COMPLETE THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE IMPROVEMENT SURVEY (IN YOUR INBOX 6 MAY)

AND SPEAK UP ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE AT VICTORIA.

JOIN US

salient never turns down a piece of writing. the next five salient themes are: - internet - money - te ao marama - free speech - women submit articles to

editor@salient.org.nz if there’s no space in the print edition, we will post them on salient’s new and improved website. check it out at

www.salient.org.nz also, please like us on facebook. please. even if you don’t like us in real life.

POLITICS

POLITICAL SASS OF THE WEEK

RAMBLINGS OF A FALLEN HACK T R I G G E R WA R N I N G : This content deals with an account of sexual assault and may be triggering to some people.

O

n the 13 February – two days before they would have performed in Auckland – hip-hop collective Odd Future were barred from entering New Zealand.

Immigration NZ justified the ban by saying that the collective “has been deemed to be a potential threat to public order”. Their evidence: in 2011, a cop pulled a muscle after Odd Future rappers jumped onto a roof.

On 1 May, the bureaucrats were forced to release the emails in which they made their decision. The emails discussed Odd Future’s “history of promoting and inciting hatred” and the “opportunity to spin [the ban] into a good news story”. We’d never given our immigration bureaucracy the power to censor art, but they had done that anyway because they thought it would make them popular. And then they had lied. Power has never cared for its own limits, but this was an arrogance beyond the usual bureaucratic conceit. The only conceit greater was the silence that would follow.

Odd Future’s songs feature rape and abuse. Perhaps it was too much to hope that our loud-mouthed elite would come to their defence. The right to share horrid stories does not make for Herald editorials or Parliamentary speeches. And maybe banning misogynists from entering New Zealand is reasonable. But if the power to censor touring artists should exist, we should at least agree as much first.

If that power was given, it wouldn’t be to an anonymous immigration functionary. But could we be sure a cabinet minister would

never censor art with which (s)he disagrees?

Could we be sure a judge would see past black-letter law and through the thicket of social mores? Even if Odd Future should’ve been banned, it’s hard to know who we could’ve trusted to tell us that. Perhaps we should accept we can trust no one at all.

I don’t know whether Odd Future are parody or whether that even matters. I don’t know whether rape in hip-hop is the same as rape in Shakespeare. Jay-Z once said: “the rapper’s character is essentially a conceit, a first-person literary creation”.

Perhaps rappers’ creations still have ethical obligations. I don’t know.

I don’t know whether the Odd Future ban was racist. There are plenty of white people who write songs about misogynistic abuse.

The Rolling Stones. Alt-J. Sublime. Tom Jones. Maybe we should be banning them too, but we’re not. When white indie boys sing about rape we never presume they’re endorsing it. Perhaps we should give rap that benefit of the doubt. To be honest, I just don’t know.

There’s a lot we can’t know. Art is fucking complicated. To oppose censorship is to oppose the idea that we will always have the answer. We may not like Odd Future’s lyrics, but to call for their ban requires an arrogance we cannot sustain. That the bureaucracy so willingly forgot this should be haunting us all.

by Jade D’Hack

“I really think that member needs to recognise his high horse went lame when he parked it up at the Dotcom mansion.”

— Wednesday last week, John Key’s response when Russel Norman accused the Prime Minister of Corruption.

TOP 5 POLITICAL LEADERS AND THEIR HOGWARTS HOUSES 1. John Key – Slytherin. That ambition, baby; look in his eyes...

2. David Cunliffe – Hufflepuff. If we are honest, a bit of a duffer.

3. Russel Norman – Ravenclaw.

Intelligent, and cunning as hell.

4. Winston Peters – Gryffindor.

Courageously fighting against straight answers since 1978.

5. Jamie Whyte – No house. Everyone knows ACT are squibs. Gosh.

GOVERNMENT BILLS THIS WEEK. 1. Credit Contracts and Financial Services Law Reform Bill – Reform of the legislation governing consumer credit contracts.

2. Vulnerable Children Bill – This bill is designed to protect and improve the wellbeing of vulnerable children.

3. Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill – Establishes noncontact orders for victims against their violent offenders.

By Jordan McCluskey

editor@salient.org.nz

15

SPORT

Top 5 Questions Heading Into Round 2 of the Playoffs . How hurt is Chris Paul? – A sore right hamstring has troubled Paul, and he also has a sprained left thumb. You’ve probably also noticed the shoulder padding under his right sleeve. He separated his shoulder on 3 January away to Dallas, missed six weeks and still isn’t completely healed.

5 Sports banter

BY OL L I E R I T C H I E

N BA

S E T

N

TO

H E AT

ew Zealanders have an obsession with the NBA. And I can definitely see why. I know I’m one of those who are obsessed.

A major American sports competition broadcast all around the world, featuring some of the biggest names in world sport, and those who will go down as some of the greatest athletes of all time.

LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant. Some of the biggest superstars in the game draw so much attention from young fans far and wide as they turn out for brutal contests three to four times a week – that is a lot of basketball.

The great thing about the NBA is that the bottom team in the league can easily upset one of the top teams, and this makes for incredibly interesting viewing. It is not a case of the Miami Heat winning by 40 every game they play. That’s the beauty of the competition.

And now we find ourselves in the playoffs, and it is all anyone is talking about! How close OKC and Indiana, two of the frontrunners, came to being eliminated after the first round. Did we want the Clippers or Golden State to advance?

And what about the second-year rookie Damian Lillard?! 0.9 seconds left, and he bangs in a three-pointer from about a football field’s length behind the threepoint line to end the Rockets’ playoff run!

16

the rock & roll issue

UP

I N

ROU N D

T WO

It’s all happening at the moment!

These sorts of moments are exactly why everyone loves the NBA. And expect plenty more to come in the second round! But going into the second round, I’ve got some questions.

Is Roy Hibbert really back? The All-Star big man was a non-factor for much of the Pacers’ first-round series against Atlanta, a team that spread the floor and posed matchup nightmares for Hibbert. If he wants to make amends for what he didn’t do against the Hawks, this would be the ideal time to do so.

Will Blake Griffin be the differencemaker against OKC? Griffin faces a difficult matchup against Thunder forward–centre Serge Ibaka, but if Griffin can get the best of Ibaka, it would be a significant factor toward the Clippers advancing to the West finals.

Personally, I can’t wait for the second round to heat up. Here are my picks: OKC to take down the Clippers in 6, Miami to end Brooklyn in 5 (Brooklyn will pick up a home win), San Antonio to put away the Blazers in 5 (I’m giving Portland a home win as well) and the Pacers to be pushed to 6 by the Wizards, only to eventually take the series.

It’s all happening in the NBA – come on Miami for the three-peat!

. How will the Pacers deal with John Wall if they couldn’t slow down Jeff Teague? – The same strategy used to try to neutralise Teague – switching Paul George on him instead of George Hill – has to be the order of business again.

4

. Can Miami stop Brooklyn in the paint? – During the regular season matchups, the Nets out-rebounded Miami by an average of 40–34. Even without injured centre Brook Lopez, the Nets have plenty of size, including Garnett, Blatche and Mason Plumlee.

3

. Can LaMarcus keep burning? – LaMarcus Aldridge is the leading scorer so far in the playoffs, averaging 29.8 points per game against Houston.

He’ll face a step-up in class against the Spurs’ No. 3–rated defence, and so is unlikely to go off for 46 and 43.

2

. Has Kevin Durant snapped out of his shooting slump? – Durant’s been awful from beyond the arc really since the end of March and was 12-for-48 in the first six games against the Grizzlies.

He was 5-for-5 in Game 7 and 12-for18 overall.

1

SEX

them to be honest. Believe me – as painful as it sounds – that it will help their grieving process a shit-tonne if you clarify that when you say, “I just don’t want to be in a relationship right now”, you mean: “I just don’t want to be in a relationship with you, ever.”

The Bone Zone W I T H C U P I E H O ODW I N K

I

f you have been in a relationship, are in a relationship, or are planning to be in a relationship, it is pretty much a given that you will at some point experience a breakup.

Just like acne and farting audibly in public, broken hearts are an unpleasant but almost certain reality of life. And while everyone aspires for the elusive beast that is the mutual breakup, most of the time it just doesn’t work out that way. Someone will always end up getting hurt, and even if you’re the one doing the heart-breaking you’ll probably still feel pretty crummy.

Over the years I have experienced a fair share of broken hearts. I have been both dumper and dumpee. I have had good breakups and bad breakups. I have acted laudably but also laughably. And so, on the back of tragically mascara-stained cheeks, drunk texts later regretted, and Feist’s ‘Let It Die’ played on repeat far too many times, I present you with Cupie Hoodwink’s Guide to Breakups.

H e a rt - B r e a k e r : Be kind: Don’t be a dick. Regardless of your reasons for ending it, getting dumped is never pleasant, and you can do your bit to ease the heartache by at least being nice about it. This extends to where and when you do it, too – in a very public, crowded location; via text, or on their birthday: stink buzz.

Be honest: While it’s important to make sure you let them down as gently as possible, being honest about why you’re breaking up with someone is really important too. If they beg you, “But WHY?!”, then you owe it to

Do it in person: If you’ve enjoyed the fruits of your relationship in person, then have the decency to end it in person too. Sure, it’s awkward and unpleasant, but hey – at least you’re not the one getting dumped! Breaking up with someone face-to-face shows them that despite what’s happening you still respect and care for them; what you say is a lot less likely to be misconstrued, and they’ll have a lot less reason to tell all their friends that you’re a dick.

Give them space: It is important to remember that if you’ve just broken up with someone, they’re gonna need their space. This can be especially hard when you’ve been together for a long time or were essentially joined at the hip, but continuing to act around them or contact them as often as you did when they were together will really confuse your ex, and make it even harder for them to move on. That being said, cutting off all contact and acting as if they don’t exist, or parading your new sexploits in front of them isn’t cool either. If you’d like to remain friends, let your level of interaction be guided by what they feel comfortable with – as the dumpee, that’s their prerogative.

H e a rt - B r o k e n : Give yourself space: One of the hardest parts of breaking up is getting used to being an ‘I’ rather than an ‘Us’. While it can be tempting to tell anyone who’ll listen that you’re totally cool with it and are planning to transition straight into being “just friends”, you need to give yourself space in order to adjust to the change of pace – whether that means deleting their number from your phone for a couple of weeks, or hiding them on Facebook.

Treat Yo’self: Getting your heart broken is like being sick – you get to stay in bed all day, eat lots of chocolate, and leave used tissues all over the goddamn house. Call up your friends, watch your favourite sitcoms, and cry at will. Yes, it feels like shit, but it will get better, and it will get better a whole lot faster if you focus on you – and only you – for the next wee while.

Love, and a huge tub of ice cream, Cupie xx

Tip of the Week: Whether it’s about getting dumped or any other relationship slump, if you’re feeling like a chump and just can’t get over that hump, Victoria’s Counselling Service might be just the ticket. Sometimes venting to an objective (not to mention professional) listener can be really helpful – as in, someone who isn’t just telling you what they think you want to hear.

If a tub of ice cream ain’t enough to soothe your heartache, give the Counselling Service a call on 463 5310, or make an appointment in person at Mauri Ora. Qu ic k i e o f th e W e e k : Hey Cupie

so say

I’m

lookin to lose my v

card to a random stranger, but don’t rly

like initial small talk... What would your advice be??

(Ps I’m a girl keen on boys)

Gurl, I hear what you’re saying. Growing up, I was awkward as hell and talking to strangers filled me with fear. Even now, having forced myself out of my anxious shell, I generally find that small talk is still at worst, painful, and at best, dull.

The important thing to remember when you’re looking to pick up, though, is that what you actually say isn’t really that important. People, in my experience, spend far too long beating around the small-talk bush. It’s generally fairly obvious when someone is angling towards banging, and if you want the same thing, making it happen can be as simple as saying: “I’mma jump your bones.”

Although getting with a random stranger can be nerve-wracking, my best advice is to try to relax, have fun and remember: if it all turns to shit you never have to see this person again. For further tips on How to Have a One Night Stand, I suggest you check out my comprehensive guide: salient.org.nz/ features/how-to-have-a-one-night-stand.

S E X UA L C O N TA C T S : G ot a burn ing quest ion for C upie ? A sk her ab out all mat ters of the heart … and other romant ic organs , anonymously at ask . fm /C upie H oodwink .

G ot

a burn ing sensat ion in your

nether

H ealth

regions ? a

call

G ive S tu dent 463 5308,

on

or pop in to their clin ics at

K elburn

and

P ipitea .

editor@salient.org.nz

17

FEATURE

WHO THE FUCK IS DA M O N ALBARN?

BY JA M I E N E I K R I E

I

f you could invite any five people from history to join you at dinner tonight, who would you pick? Alongside Lyndon B. Johnson, Jon Stewart, John Lennon and Deng Xiaoping, I would pick Damon Albarn.

At this point, you either have no idea who Damon Albarn is and are rushing to your smartphone to figure it out (or you don’t care at all and I just have an inflated sense of self-importance), or you are smugly congratulating yourself for knowing enough about music to correctly identify the frontman, lead singer, and creative genius behind Blur and Gorillaz, who finally released his solo debut, Everyday Robots, this Monday.

Albarn’s evolution came from modest beginnings. Albarn formed Blur in 1988 with two classmates from London’s prestigious Goldsmith College. Another manifestation of youth angst and aggression, Blur’s 1991 debut album Leisure peaked at number seven on the UK Albums Chart despite receiving mixed reviews. Journalist John Harris said he “could not shake off the odour of anti-climax”.

Even Albarn himself has since referred to Leisure as “awful.”

Albarn realised that the band’s image matched too closely with Nirvana, and Blur underwent an ideological and image shift celebrating their British heritage. Unfortunately, this move put the band right in the middle of the British pop-punk rebellion, nicknamed ‘Britpop’. In 1991, NME magazine wrote that: “Blur are the acceptable pretty face of a whole clump of bands that have emerged since the whole Manchester thing started to run out of steam.”

With two more successful albums – 1993’s Modern Life Is Rubbish and 1995’s The Great Escape – Blur was on top of the Britpop era.

That is until October 1995, when Oasis released its second album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory.

Following Oasis’s worldwide success, the media quipped that: “[Blur] wound up winning the battle but losing the war.” Blur became perceived by many as an “inauthentic middle-class pop band” in comparison to the “working-class heroes” of Oasis. Bassist Alex James later summarised: “After being the People’s Hero, Damon was the People’s Prick for a short period ... basically, he was a loser – very publicly.”

But, like Tesla and Edison or Magic and Bird, Blur’s competition with Oasis elevated both bands to a higher level. For the rest of the decade their battle played out across the tabloids and the charts.

The rivalry even seemed to be reignited at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, when both bands released anthology box sets 18

the rock & roll issue

in preparation for performances at the opening ceremony. Upon hearing Blur’s compilation album alongside Oasis’s, Rolling Stone revised history, writing: “Was there ever a debate who was better?”

After witnessing Albarn’s second act, few would disagree.

Albarn and collaborator Jamie Hewlett first came up with the idea to create Gorillaz when the two were watching MTV. “If you watch MTV for too long, it’s a bit like hell – there’s nothing of substance there. So we got this idea for a cartoon band, something that would be a comment on that,” Hewlett said.

Gorillaz were a sensation, the most unique experiment in musical history. Albarn was the musical mastermind alongside a rotating cast of musicians, with every collaborator assuming the role of a new character, each with their own backstory and image. In 2001, the band’s eponymous debut album sold over seven million copies. The lifeless, listless animated characters that populated music videos for songs like ‘Clint Eastwood’ and ‘Feel Good Inc.’ were as close to ‘Thriller’ as the early ‘00s ever got.

But Albarn wasn’t content with simply creating Guinness World Records’ Most Successful Virtual Band. He wanted to create musical revolution.

Over the course of three studio albums – 2001’s Gorillaz, 2005’s Demon Days and 2010’s Plastic Beach – Albarn took Gorillaz across every musical spectrum, from the rap paranoia of ‘Clint Eastwood’ to the subtle mania of ‘Kids With Guns’. While the band’s debut drew influence from electronica and hip-hop, Plastic Beach’s jazz-infused indie fare featured the Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music as well as Hypnotic Brass Ensemble (alongside Snoop Dogg).

No other band (including The Beatles) has achieved such chameleonic diversity and range.

After working with African musicians in aid of Oxfam, writing and performing lead vocals in pet-project The Good, the Bad & the Queen, making up one-fourth of a supergroup, composing film soundtracks, and venturing into the world of opera with Dr Dee and Journey to the West, Albarn finally released his solo debut on Monday.

Having just listened to Everyday Robots, I could try to describe it as a subtle, textured patchwork covering Damon Albarn’s 45 years to date, a musical reflection, a window into the mind of an endlessly fascinating and introverted man, and an excellent album.

But trying to label Albarn or his music is like trying to catch a rare fish with your bare hands; you need to just let go and appreciate its brilliance. And maybe invite him to dinner.l

INTERVIEW

WHO THE FUCK IS JAMES MILNE?

BY C A M P R I C E

“H

ello, James speaking…”

James Milne is a very successful New Zealand musician, but it’s unlikely you’ll recognise the name. In 2006, he released two debut albums, one a self-titled solo album under his current guise, and the other with his band at the time, The Reduction Agents. In 2009, his second solo album Chant Darling won the inaugural Taite Music Prize (most recently won this year by Lorde). Since then he’s released another two albums with the band, toured as a bassist with American band Okkervil River, been involved with The Brunettes, written music for Taika Waititi’s film Eagle vs Shark, performed in another band called BARB with Liam Finn and Connan Hosford of Mockasins fame, worked with Mike Fab from the Black Seeds, and toured with NZ music legends Crowded House. He’s just about to play all three of his Lawrence Arabia albums on consecutive nights in both Wellington and Auckland. Salient Editor Cam sat down on the first day of NZ Music Month to chat with a little-known legend.

WHAT’S YOUR GO-TO SONG WHEN YOU’RE AT A PARTY AND YOU WANT TO PLAY A REALLY COOL SONG THAT EVERYONE LIKES? Oooh, tough first question. I’ll just check

my iTunes for the name of it. I don’t have Spotify because I don’t have a device. I’ve got a shitty old cellphone. Hang on, what the fuck’s it called. The song is ‘Teardrops’ by Womack and Womack.

WHO WAS THE FIRST BAND YOU LISTENED TO WHEN YOU WERE GROWING UP THAT MADE YOU WANT TO PLAY? Either the

Beatles or Queen.

WHO’S

YOUR

FAVOURITE

BEATLE?

Probably John. Pretty tough to choose. I mean, I like Ringo, but I wouldn’t be Ringo.

WHAT WERE YOUR DIFFERENT INFLUENCES FROM ALBUM TO ALBUM? My early stuff was

influenced by the Kinks. The first Lawrence

Arabia album was Syd Barrett and kind of weird stuff. More Beatles and David Bowie for Chant Darling. Serge Gainsbourg for The Sparrow. I don’t know what the current one I’m recording at the moment.

WHICH IS THE PIECE OF WORK THAT YOU ARE THE MOST PROUD OF? Shit that’s tough.

I think it changes. I think the first Lawrence Arabia record is the one I’m most interested by at the moment. It was a real kind of mind-purge when I made it.

TELL ME ABOUT THE UPCOMING SHOWS. IS IT TOUGH TO PLAY SOME OF THE SOUND EFFECTS LIVE? It’s not a case of just getting

together and jamming. I want the shows to be quite faithful representations of the records.

There’s quite a lot of electronic stuff on the first one.

DOES THE LINEUP OF THE BAND CHANGE MUCH? The core of the band has stayed pretty

much the same since about 2011. It kind of mutated out of different bands. It’s quite fluid, but always maintained the same, I don’t know what you’d call it, spirit or something.

HOW’D YOU GET INTO THE MUSIC SCENE?

I just had a crappy little band in Christchurch.

No, actually, that’s mean to members of the band.

It was a formative band in Christchurch, just trying to make stuff happen. I started writing for the student magazine at Canterbury, Canta. I got drunk and interviewed the Brunettes and ended up joining them. It wasn’t a calculated thing, I just enjoyed hanging round with musicians and wanted to have that kind of lifestyle.

IS THE LIFESTYLE ALL SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK’N’ROLL? It doesn’t really pay well so it’s

pretty humble.

SO NO COCAINE AND FAST CARS?

Definitely not. I’m lucky enough not to have a day job, but it’s reasonably rare to be in that position in New Zealand. But I’m definitely not well-off.

IS MUSIC LIKE A 9-TO-5 JOB?

It used to be more spontaneous, but I guess time was less of a premium when I was younger. Now that I’ve got a family, I have to be a little bit more focussed about it. Definitely not a 9-to-5 job, it’s more bursts of creativity. Now I’m older and more selfcritical, it takes a little longer to do it.

WHAT’S IT LIKE BEING A DADDY ROCKER?

It changes my day a bit. I work around nap times.

It hasn’t made any substantial changes to my lifestyle – I was a bit of a homebody before I had a baby anyway.

WHERE’S THE BEST AUDIENCE YOU’VE PLAYED TO IN NEW ZEALAND? Chick’s

Hotel in Port Chalmers has always been pretty reliable for a great fun night and a good audience.

I like it when audiences are smiling and dancing and enjoying the music. I don’t want the audience to be too reverential because that’s a bit awkward.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR JAMES MILNE? Hopefully I’ll release my new

album at the start of next year. I’m working with Mike Fab and we are co-producing it. It’s more poppy than The Sparrow. It’s got a slight Latin influence, a lot of percussion.l

here are the details for the show. check the giveaways section for a chance to win tickets Dates: Friday 30 May Lawrence Arabia, Saturday 31 May Chant Darling Sunday 1 June The Sparrow Place: Puppies 118 Tory St Tickets from www.undertheradar.co.nz Price: $45 for a season pass (every night), $15 for Friday, $15 for Saturday, $25 for Sunday editor@salient.org.nz

19

FEATURE

BY PENNY GAULT READING PLAYLIST:

‘Everybody Hurts’ by R.E.M ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ by The Verve ‘Believe’ by Cher

MORE THAN WORDS Thank God music is more than words. I genuinely thought Rihanna wanted me to love her like a hot pie. Despite my lyrical confusion, I’m plugged into my iPod for 70 per cent of the day. I need music to regulate bouncing between the extremities of the pissed-off–hungry–ecstatic emotion triangle that governs my existence. Beyond the bounds of this triangle, I’m not really one for emotion. Even so, I can tell a sad song before it smacks me in the face. ‘Hallelujah’ will always be the saddest song ever. It was the 20

the rock & roll issue

only song my grandfather voluntarily listened to, so at his funeral it was played the only way our family knows: at maximum volume with all the doors and windows open. My eyes leaked a bit.

A song’s technical elements help to convey emotion – we can recognise music as ‘sad’ even without lyrics. Sad songs are typically slow, and in minor key. Our interpretation depends on a mixture of composition and psychology. That we immediately recognise a minor key as sad relies on Western cultural preconceptions. A traditional celebratory Japanese wedding song, ‘Fo Rki Ngaroul’, sounds to my Western ears like an imminent warning of tragedy (maybe it is). As songs in minor key are characteristically used in sad movie scenes, we’re accustomed to interpret that sound as ‘sad’ – the drawn-out opening chords of Céline Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go

On’ is pretty much an autocue for tears at the end of Titanic. The same rules apply when we talk. When we’re excited, our pitch raises and we talk faster like a teenage girl who hasn’t seen her bestie since, like, YESTERDAY!

IT’S A SAD, SAD SITUATION Recent studies into tone, volume and key trends in pop music show that over the past 50 years, our demand for sad songs has increased. No doubt our general nostalgic romanticism of the 1960s has something to do with the tone of the music at the time.

With upbeat songs like ‘We Can Work it Out’ by The Beatles, it’s hard not to imagine life in the ‘60s as existing within a happy little yellow submarine. A research project led by E. Glenn Schellenberg and Christian von Scheve into changes in music’s emotional cues

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since the 1960s observed that the minor key has become a major player in the Billboard Magazine Hot 100 charts. Whereas in the ‘60s only 15 per cent of pop songs were written in a minor key, Shellenberg and von Scheve’s study revealed a staggering 60 per cent of current pop songs were written in a minor key, sounding darker and more melancholic.

However, the emotions communicated through music now are more complex than in the ‘60s. While tone and speed changes make a song sound darker, song lyrics complicate things and can be emotionally confusing when you really pay attention. The lyrics of Alicia Keys’ ‘No One’ are empowering and uplifting, however the slow 90 BPM makes it a heart-wrenching listening experience.

On one interpretation, the melancholic revolution can be put down to hardship and tragedy in society. This justification requires a pessimistic view of human development where social problems have steadily increased for 50 years. Perhaps that’s true. While the ‘60s were full of optimism for a brighter future, what have we really achieved? There’s still war, terrorism, poverty and abuse. Perhaps we’re just coming to grips with the fact that humanity is pretty inhumane, and that bleak reality is reflected in our music taste.

The mixture of technical and lyrical conventions taking over the charts means our current faves are emotionally ambiguous – somehow, shouting, “A disease of the mind it can control you / I think I’m going insaaaaane,” while making alluring eye contact with the object of your desire at Edison’s, translates to: “Come grind on me”.

The popularity of emotionally ambiguous music could indicate we’re on the way up. Or maybe we’re happy to celebrate the fact that the world is a bit shit sometimes.

Another possible explanation recalls Year 11 Physics: public opinion sways between two extremes over 40-year periods, like a pendulum. 1963–2003 was a ‘me’ cycle, emphasising the power of the individual.

Sad pop music is an inevitable result of the navel-gazing characteristic of the ‘me’ cycle.

2003–2043 is a ‘we’ cycle; public sentiment is cooperative and humble – we make selfdeprecatory jokes while working with others to make the world a better place. Cute. This explains the recent surge in up-tempo pop songs that have united audiences the world over – think dancing to ‘Gangnam Style’, and the invitation to “clap along” with Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy’. The pendulum theory

OUR DEMAND FOR MOODY TUNES IS NOT INCONSEQUENTIAL. THE EVER-EXPANDING 27 CLUB SUGGESTS CATHARSIS COMES AT A COST. DOES MELANCHOLY KILL THE RADIO STAR? IT SEEMS SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK’N’ROLL HAS BECOME A SYNONYM FOR TRAGIC DEATH. also accounts for emotionally confused pop music – it seems we are in a transition phase.

WHEN THE FEELING’S GONE AND YOU CAN’T GO ON Or maybe sad music is popular because we just like it. There is something undeniably pleasing about joining Demi Lovato on the ‘Skyscraper’ emotional rollercoaster. Aristotle describes this as catharsis – by overwhelming us with an undesirable emotion, like sadness, we are purged of it. Participants in a recent Japanese study felt better after listening to sad music as it was far more tragic than their reality. Researcher Ai Kawakami reflected that the distance between the song and the listener is comforting as there is “no direct danger or harm unlike the emotion experienced in everyday life.” Instead, musical sadness is experienced vicariously. If the need to purge ourselves of sadness is so great, and sad songs are increasing in popularity, are we then a sad population? High demand for mentalhealth services at Victoria University and the propensity of anti-depression campaigns in the media suggest we might be. Or maybe we’re just more aware.

FUCK THIS WORLD, LET’S GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE Our demand for moody tunes is not inconsequential. The ever-expanding 27 Club suggests catharsis comes at a cost. Does melancholy kill the radio star? It seems sex, drugs and rock’n’roll has become a synonym for tragic death. Lead singer of Nirvana, Kurt Cobain, frequently repeated that he was shocked by the popular reception of music that was so personal to him (nevermind the fact that many of his lyrics are inaudible), and fell into heroin as a form of protection (or so it’s now said). Cobain’s death in 1994 saw him join the ranks of the 27 Club, an everexpanding compilation of musicians who have died at the age of 27, usually as a result of substance abuse, homicide or suicide. Cobain

joined Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, and was later accompanied by Amy Winehouse.

Premature death of musical genius is not restricted to those aged 27. Jeff Buckley drowned in a river in Memphis while singing ‘Whole Lotta Love’ by Led Zeppelin. I’m not sure if this is bleak or beautiful, but it sure makes ‘Hallelujah’ a whole lot sadder. Tragedy extends beyond the musician themselves.

Peaches Geldof, daughter of rock god Bob Geldof, and L’Wren Scott, stylist, designer, and girlfriend of Mick Jagger, took their own lives in the past two months.

Why is tragedy such a big part of being a musician? The biography of Kurt Cobain is such a common, rehashed narrative because his story so perfectly embodies the difficulty of becoming the emotional voice of millions.

Is tragic suicide and drug overdose too high a price to pay to have our souls momentarily soothed by ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’? Or is it a necessary sacrifice? Surely, with such devastating repercussions, we should be looking more carefully at our listening habits.

Looking back at the development of music, it appears that tragedy and struggle are inseparable from successful music. R&B stemmed from the struggle of black slaves.

Taylor Swift’s most popular hits arise out of her breakups. Rather than music being the cause of tragedy, it would seem that an element of emotional volatility is necessary for pop-culture success. In fact, Amy Winehouse seemed to endorse such culture in her hit single ‘Rehab’ – a groovy tune celebrating the refusal of rehabilitation. Our music choices reveal unconscious elements of our emotional selves; it pays to tune in. l

PENNY’S TOP 5 SONGS OF ALL TIME: 1. TV on the Radio – ‘Wolf Like Me’ 2. Kings of Leon – ‘Ragoo’ 3. Queen – ‘I Want to Break Free’ 4. Toto – ‘Africa’ 5. We Are Augustines – ‘Chapel Song’ editor@salient.org.nz

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RAGING AGAINST THE MACHINE M U S I C A S P O L I T I CA L R E S I STA N C E

BY ELISE MUNDEN READING PLAYLIST: ‘There Is No Depression in New Zealand’ – covered by Street Chant

MUSIC HAS BEEN INEXTRICABLY LINKED WITH SOCIAL AND POLITICAL MOVEMENTS THROUGHOUT HISTORY. BUT WHAT DOES OUR GENERATION HAVE TO ARGUE ABOUT, AND HOW ARE WE USING MUSIC TO DO SO? In 1969, Jimi Hendrix performed a guitar solo of the American national anthem at Woodstock. For the audience in front of him, the performance was an appropriation of patriotism which represented a desire to resist the capitalist culture that America had come to represent.

Even for younger generations who were not alive at the time, the festival has remained a bastion of free expression for the last half-century.

Today, the largest music festivals in the world – the largest being Donauinselfest in Austria, which attracted over three million people in 2013 – are almost entirely profit-motivated. Reviews of Coachella 2014 placed just as much emphasis on fashion and celebrity appearances as it did on the music. The most politically motivated musical event in the past year seems to be Miley Cyrus smoking a joint at the MTV Europe Music Awards, but this could be construed as a career-bolstering move just as much as an act of resistance against drug law.

Indeed, today’s musicians have a lot to live up to in terms of using music as a mode of social resistance. Here’s a brief synopsis of the precedent that has been set throughout recent pop history: – The Beatles. While their early records were relatively family-friendly, songs such as ‘Taxman’ and ‘Revolution 1’ express clear ideas about social unrest. They were also proud users and supporters of various drugs, with John Lennon claiming (but Paul McCartney denying) that the entire album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) was about marijuana. The rapid popularisation of 22

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rock music which surrounded The Beatles’ career showed a strong generational resistance against the comparatively prudent lifestyles of their parents.

– Spurred on by the high tension of race relations in the United States and an almost-global popular resistance against the Vietnam War, this decade saw musicians becoming more explicit in their attacks against politics and policies. Marvin Gaye’s 1971 album What’s Going On? was a close examination of racial tensions, and Bob Dylan’s Hurricane (1975) was a bold display of support for Rubin “Hurricane” Carter who he believed had been wrongly convicted of murder due to bias against his black ethnicity.

– The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag. The birth of punk. While some punk bands were just an excuse to play loud instruments badly, the culture surrounding the punk scene in both America and Britain is consistently recognised as representing a sexual and political emancipation among youth of the time. Anything that governments did which might piss people off became a target for these bands.

In New Zealand, Blam Blam Blam released the now legendary single ‘There Is No Depression in New Zealand’ in 1981. The song is a poignant display of irony, and was ubiquitous during the Springbok Tour protests which were happening at the time.

– Hip-hop and hardcore bands which wrote exclusively political songs became popular in the ‘90s. ‘Killing in the Name’ by Rage Against the Machine is still a standard song at house parties and clubs, 23 years after it was released. It has become a symbol of political unity among Gen Y. Hip-hop brought a new kind of critique to popular music. Instead of simply wanting to “fight the power” (to quote Public Enemy), issues of masculinity and minority racial groups became the central themes of the

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genre. ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ by Coolio, ‘C.R.E.A.M’ by Wu-Tang Clan.

The Notorious B.I.G. and 2pac. These songs and artists offered graphic representation of the experience of being a black American man growing up in a cycle of poverty and violence.

In both of Barack Obama’s Presidential campaigns, world-famous musicians were eager to offer their support. Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, and a myriad of other artists performed at his inaugural events and campaign tours. For the most part, New Zealand’s general elections have failed to actively engage with popular musicians and other art forms.

To be fair, the fervour of literally millions of American patriots filling entire stadiums during political rallies is hard to top – especially when rugby is the only thing that can attract a crowd larger than 30,000 people in New Zealand. But does this mean that there is no enthusiasm at all among local musicians towards current politics?

Well, no. It’s just that the issues receiving attention from local musicians aren’t the same issues being broadcast on Campbell Live.

GENDER EQUALITY – Lorde has rapidly gained attention

over the past year for her views on gender and sexuality. During multiple interviews and written in viral tweets, she has consistently expressed her desire for women to be seen as equals to men, for no form of sexuality to be marginalised, and for all women to be considered beautiful for their unique physical image.

But New Zealand has already legalised gay marriage. Labour has already proposed a target of 50 per cent female MPs. New Zealand already has one of the lowest gender-pay gaps in the world. How much of an impact can one 17-year-old pop star make when many major policy changes have already been made, or are progressing rapidly towards enactment?

people will have actually heard of this event. Furthermore, I am yet to hear anyone suggest that the 420-loving musicians who performed there have considered making political traction with their support for decriminalisation of marijuana.

Beyond small niche groups, there are certainly other musicians who also share a love of dak/grass/pot/ganja etc. Katchafire regularly include explicit lyrics about smoking pot (such as in ‘Collie Herb Man’), and Home Brew and Kids of 88 have also shown lyrical favour towards the drug. But the most recent release from any of these artists was in 2012, and they are not exactly attracting international – in fact, barely even national – headlines.

Ultimately, who cares that some (most) musicians get high? Certainly not the government.

SO WHAT? New Zealand is small.

We haven’t started any international conflicts. We are yet to breed any type of violent radicalism or terrorism. Our parliament is technically bipartisan, but not dramatically so.

Based on the precedent set by musicians in the 20th century, artists are only willing to dedicate entire songs or albums to political causes which have already garnered political traction – and therefore popularity – with the public.

So unless New Zealanders start giving more of a shit about local politics, our own personal Woodstock is a distant dream. l

MY TOP 5 SONGS OF ALL TIME (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER):

LIBERALISATION OF DRUG LAWS – The world ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’ – Jeff Buckley recently celebrated the glorious event of 4/20. For the past two years, Puppies has hosted a ‘420 Eve’ event featuring musicians who make their love of weed (among other drugs) extremely clear through both their social media presence and their music. But only a few hundred

‘Wet Sand’ – Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Ablutophobia’ – Sheep, Dog & Wolf ‘Strawberry Letter 23’ – Shuggie Otis ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ – The Beatles

editor@salient.org.nz

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AVANT GARDE A CLUE ello, dear readers! As devotees may remember, I’ve been an avid music listener/consumer for years, and I thought I might impart some of my scant knowledge regarding genres on the trail-less-travelled for your amusement. Admittedly, the most common reaction I get from friends is “Can you change the song?”, “This is shit,” and “What is wrong with you are you drunk you need help,” but I hope you’re more amenable.

A quick note: the astute reader will notice that the albums recommended are dominated by male artists. This is because the albums were chosen because of their accessibility – avant-garde genres feature a plethora of women, a lot of whose work is imho better but less friendly to uninitiated ears. Another reason is that, unfortunately, you’re more likely to find these albums in circulation than ones by their female counterparts. Slowboat, for example, has a shit-load of John Cage but no Pauline Oliveros; hopefully, if you explore these genres further, you’ll realise that this shit needs to change. Shake my goddamn head.

H

Jeff Mills – Live at t h e L i q u i d R o o m , T oy ko

Da f t P u n k – Discovery

Th e C o n e t Project – Recordings o f S h o r t wav e N u m b e r S tat i o n s

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S wa n s – Th e S e e r

Wu - Ta n g C l a n – Enter the WuTang

THEN TRY

IF YOU LIKE

Wi l c o – Y a n k e e Foxtr ot Hotel

Pau l D o l d e n – The Threshold of Deafening Silence

N.O.D. – Niggaz of Destruction

G o d s p e e d Yo u !

Black Emperor – FsharpAsharpInfinity

N i k o s Ve l i o t i s etc. – Quartet

Bitches Brew – M i l e s D av i s

AMM AMM m u s i c 1 9 6 6

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FEATURE

BY PHILIP MCSWEENEY

5 ALBUMS TO TAKE TO A DESERT ISLAND

SONG TO LISTEN TO WHILE READING

Talk Talk – Laughing Stock Nikos Veliotis, Taku Sugimoto, Kazushige Kinoshita Unami – Quartet Herbert Distel – La Stazione Slint – Spiderland Miles Davis – Bitches Brew

Steve Reich – ‘Come Out’; or Nikos Veliotis et al – ‘Music for 4 Stringed Instruments’

and

Taku

DETROIT TECHNO The acclaimed TV show The Wire taught me a lot more than just how to recognise really really good television: it also informed me about how drug dealers communicate their location, how homosexuality is perceived in lower socioeconomic strata, how many fingers it takes to fill an Irishman’s arsehole and – relevantly – the genre of Detroit techno.

Detroit techno refers to a specific kind of electronic dance music that emerged from an outrageously fecund Detroit scene from the late ‘80s to the mid-‘90s. Its identifiable features include analogue synthesisers and frenetic, often layered, percussion that tacitly comments on the automotive industry that defines Detroit. As such, it’s clinical and surgically precise while teeming with life and adrenaline. Detroit techno artists also self-consciously serve not just as DJs but as curators of a history of dance music; Steely Dan licks are wryly interpenetrated with DJ Jimi’s exhortation to “pop that pussy and shake that ass”, and the effect of this transfiguration and re-contextualisation is a weird sort of danceable high-art that moves at 120 per sec.

FIELD RECORDINGS Field recordings are the most esoteric genre of music outlined here, with some questioning whether they classify as ‘music’ at all. The reason for this is that they are, as the name helpfully suggests, just recordings of everything from the mundane to the horrific. There have been field recordings made of the sea and the wind; there have been field recordings of what it sounds like inside an ice cube or a USB drive; there have been field recordings of psychiatric hospitals and men defecating explosively after eating undercooked fish (I shit you not). Regardless of whether you fall in the “This is ingenious!” or “This is horsecockshit!” camp, you surely must concede there’s something weirdly entrancing about hearing certain sounds re-contexualised as musical compositions – for those who find train stations soothing, La Stazione would be an emotive godsend.

ELECTROACOUSTIC As with pornography and why Oreos taste so much better when dipped in tea, electroacoustic music proves elusive to define – although you’ll certainly know it when you hear it. To offer an incredibly simplistic definition, ‘electroacoustic’ refers to music that uses electronic technology to explore sounds (that’s the ‘acoustic’ part) that are unusual, esoteric or impossible to achieve with acoustics alone, and it has spawned the sub-genres of ‘tape music’, ‘EAI’, ‘Musique concrète’ and others. There is an academic compositional focus to electroacoustic that must be taken into account; it’s about pushing the boundaries of what sound can achieve and how it can be rendered.

MEMPHIS RAP Many music listeners go through distinct stages when it comes through hip-hop; there’s the deplorable “Hip-hop isn’t REAL MUSIC” stage, but then there’s the stage where listeners acknowledge hip-hop’s validity but insist that it be either “socially conscious” or “upbeat and danceable”. To which Memphis rap flips its middle finger before dousing the perpetrator in gasoline. Memphis rap is confrontational. It is heavily rooted in horrorcore, death threats and, in Triple 6 Mafia’s case, “the Satan shit”. The beats are menacing, the production lo-fi and grim. It is unabashedly unpalatable, which goes some way to explaining why it never caught on in the same way East or West Coast hiphop did. Despite the fruitful and diverse scene, which included countless female rappers well before the mainstream cottoned on, there’s something about Memphis rap that relegates it to cult-genre status. Memphis rap thrusts you into the lifestyle without mercy – Memphis rap ringleader Tommy Wright III copped 23 felonies during the ‘90s (in a genre where authenticity is currency, the man is a billionaire).

[Note: The subject matter of Memphis rap could be triggering. If it ain’t your bag it ain’t your bag: forego it at your leisure.]

ONKYO Onkyo, or Onkyokei, describes a niche genre that emanated from Japan that focusses on music textures, silence, and the full range of sounds an instrument is capable of eliciting. Instead of strumming guitars, for example, they’ll be untuned and plucked. The genre is a testament to the diversity of the musical spectrum and a love-letter to music fans in that the silence provides an opportunity for the listener to fill in the blanks.

FREE IMPROVISATION] Improvisation has been a staple of music for eons, and is so commonplace in many genres – jazz and rock especially – that placing ‘free improvisation’ on a list of obscure genres might seem bemusing. But ‘free improv’ is an entirely different kettle o’ fish to ‘improvisation’. Its progenitors, the deranged group of people that comprise AMM and Derek Bailey, explained that free improvisation is non-idiomatic (a fancy way of saying that it doesn’t conform to a specific genre) and, well, free – there are no rules, no harmonies, melodies or technical proficiency on display here. Instead, the focus is on atonal interplay, flinging discord between each other and seeing what sticks, and dissonant textures. editor@salient.org.nz

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WHATEVER PEOPLE SAY I AM, THAT’S WHAT I’M NOT A N I N T E R V I E W W I T H N I C K O ’ M A L L E Y , A R C T I C M O N K E Y S B A S S I S T B Y D U N C A N & C A M

S

ince bursting onto the music scene with ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ back in 2006, the Arctic Monkeys have become one of the definitive bands of our generation. Their first album was the fastest-selling debut album in British music history, quicker even than the Beatles’. Their latest effort, AM, debuted at number one in Britain (just like their previous four), and has sold millions around the world. Last week, they rocked the TSB Arena as part of a world tour for the album. They were consummate rockers: slick, loud, tight, dripping confidence, oozing sex.

Salient Editor Cam sat down for a chat with Nick O’Malley, the bassplaying Monkey. Aside from the part where Cam made Nick fear for his life, the interview went pretty well.

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SECTION 1: MUSIC

“CAUSE THERE’S THIS TUNE I’VE FOUND THAT MAKES ME THINK OF YOU SOMEHOW”

band. But yeah, occasionally we’ll get a few kids coming up to us just saying something like I like your stuff or whatever, or not occasionally. For me, I started seeing, before I even joined the band, people started talking about us when everyone was singing along at the gigs and stuff and they knew all the lyrics and it started seeming like something special was happening with the Arctic Monkeys.

CAM: WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO AT THE MOMENT? the band with people I didn’t know. We’ve WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SONG TO JUST PUT ON AND known each other since we were little kids.

JAM OUT TO? Nick: Ummh, well just before this phone HAVE YOU GOT ANY TIPS FOR MUSICIANS? IF YOU’RE call I actually was just listening to a band GOOD, HOW DO YOU TAKE THAT NEXT STEP INTO SO WHAT’S THE LIFESTYLE LIKE? WHAT’S IT LIKE called The Amazing Snakeheads. ‘Here It GREATNESS? WHEN DID YOU MAKE THAT STEP? BEING ON THE ROAD? IS IT QUITE GRUELLING? Oh, I don’t know, again difficult to say.

But Comes Again’.

A Scottish trio who also record with Domino Records. They sound like a bit more of a metally version of the early Arctic Monkeys.

WHAT ABOUT YOUR FAVOURITE BAND OF ALL TIME?

Oh, ugh, that’s a tough one. Yeah, I’d probably have to be really obvious and go with the Beatles, y’know.

I think, I suppose, a good musician always knows that they can do better. I suppose, y’know, nobody is actually, should actually, be thinking that they are good, I guess, because there is always more to explore, more music to listen to, and you can always get better. But I suppose you have got to enjoy what you are doing and if you’re not enjoying it don’t do it.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE ARCTIC MONKEYS SONG SECTION 2: LIFESTYLE THAT YOU LISTEN TO AND YOU THINK: “THIS IS AMAZING. THIS IS THE BEST SONG WE’VE WRITTEN. WE’VE DONE IT”?

Um, I don’t know, um… This is a difficult one because I have listened to them so many times: my favourite one is probably ‘No. 1 Party Anthem’ off the new record.

They played this song at the gig.

DO YOU HAVE A PRE-SHOW RITUAL? WHAT DO YOU DO DURING THE DAY BEFORE A BIG SHOW?

Umm yeah, nothing too weird really. We just normally, you know, stand in the dressing room backstage, kind of just getting ready, listening to music and try to get, you know, into that let’s-go-and-entertain-some-people mode. So just slowly bringing yourself up to speed, having a drink, listening to music and trying to get yourselves up and ready.

“SUNGLASSES INDOORS, PAR FOR THE COURSE”

Umm, you know, actually it’s just great.

It’s a great laugh. It’s a lot of fun. But yeah, at the same time it’s gruelling, you know, after sometimes when you get on a bus for 15 hours, and then plane somewhere after showering in some little dank place and then back on the bus again and drive another 15 hours. But then sometimes you are just flying in and staying in nice hotels so it kind of has its ups and downs. But, you know, for the majority of it, it’s an amazing experience getting to travel around with friends, have people cheer for you. I’m not trying to say that it’s not a good job. It’s something we love doing.

IS THE LIFESTYLE LIKE WHAT WE GET FROM THE MOVIES? IS IT ALL SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK’N’ROLL?

WHAT WAS IT LIKE THE FIRST TIME YOU WERE ON THE Well, I think the answer we have it all sitting in vans, sitting backstage counting the hours COVER OF ROLLING STONE? Yeah, I mean, it’s surreal. It’s great, obviously, it’s a great thing that you always dream about when you are a kid and first start a band and, y’know, things like playing at Glastonbury and stuff like that; yeah, it’s a great feeling.

I suppose when it actually happens it feels like it’s not real or something, but then you kind of just like, you know, when you see a picture of yourself in a supermarket on a magazine you are more just like embarrassed by it. Kind of try and not look at it too much, but yeah, obviously it is a great thing.

down, stranded somewhere and shit like that, but, you know, when you think about things you edit out all the boring parts and so I will just make it sound interesting and so yeah, it’s exactly as you expect it.

DO YOU HAVE A DRUG OF CHOICE?

Oh nah nah, I was just kidding with all of that shit: I am just a drinker.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE DRINK?

Everything really, all of it. I have not found anything I don’t really like.

YOU TRANSITIONED INTO THE BAND AFTER THE FIRST WHEN DID YOU KNOW YOU’D MADE IT? WHEN DID ALBUM. HOW DID YOU MANAGE THE TRANSITION PEOPLE START NOTICING YOU ON THE STREETS? WE ARE WONDERING WHAT WE SHOULD DRINK INTO THE BAND? Oh, yeah it’s not really that intense in that TONIGHT FOR THE CONCERT. DO YOU THINK THERE IS Oh, well I don’t know. I suppose we’ve all respect. I think Al [frontman and all-time A ONE TYPE OF LIQUOR THAT SUMS UP THE ARCTIC known each other for quite a long time legend, role model and rock’n’roll god Alex MONKEYS? since before the band, so there was never really any kind of introductory phase. It was just straight in and it just felt like, I don’t know, very natural to be playing with the guys rather than, you know, if I had to join

Turner, but Nick just calls him Al, as you do] gets it a lot more than the other three of us but to be honest, I don’t know, we don’t really get any kind of mob in the street: we’re not really that kind of One Direction

We have quite a tradition of having a shot of tequila. That’s usually our get-up-and-go shot before we go on. It’s the one that warms everything up.

editor@salient.org.nz

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HEY SO WHAT IS THE BEST VENUE YOU HAVE EVER PLAYED?

I’d have to say headlining Glastonbury, y’know last year, that was like just the best thing I’ve ever done gig-wise: just a massive gig and it all went really well and the best festival ever really in terms of its legendary status as a festival. So to headline that on a Friday night packed out and it for all to go really well: yeah, that was definitely my favourite moment being in a band ever.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE FOR THE ARCTIC MONKEYS? ARE YOU GUYS WORKING ON A NEW ALBUM? WHAT’S THE PLAN? Yeah, we don’t really know yet; we’re just kind of finishing off visiting all the different parts of the world we haven’t been to yet for this record. And then after that, maybe a little break or just, you know ,kind of stay in one place for a little while and then maybe get on with something new. But as of now, we haven’t really got any plans of what we have got to do. But you know we will always be back. We will never be off for too long.

I SUPPOSE WHEN IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS IT FEELS LIKE IT’S NOT REAL OR SOMETHING, BUT THEN YOU KIND OF JUST LIKE, YOU KNOW, WHEN YOU SEE A PICTURE OF YOURSELF IN A SUPERMARKET ON A MAGAZINE YOU ARE MORE JUST LIKE EMBARRASSED BY IT. KIND OF TRY AND NOT LOOK AT IT TOO MUCH, BUT YEAH, OBVIOUSLY IT IS A GREAT THING.

SECTION 3: MISCELLANEOUS

“SECRETS I HAVE HELD IN MY HEART ARE HARDER TO HIDE THAN I THOUGHT” IF YOU HAD TO BE ONE ANIMAL, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

One animal? So I can’t be a collection? Umm, singular.

YOU CAN BE A HERD IF YOU LIKE…

Umm, probably a dog. Because, you know, they get to live in houses and I like living in a house.

FOR A FRIEND’S WEDDING WE ALL COVERED R KELLY ‘I BELIEVE I CAN FLY’, BUT THAT’S NOT FOR AN ACTUAL GIG, BUT THAT WAS A LOT OF FUN.

DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS? LIKE WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE DOG? WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE SONG YOU HAVE EVER WHAT ARE YOU DOING AFTER THE CONCERT AND CAN WE No, no I can’t have pets in this game, never in COVERED? COME? one place. But yeah, I have always liked the idea of having a dog.

IF YOU GOT TO HAVE TWO PEOPLE OVER FOR DINNER FROM ANY TIME IN HISTORY, WHO WOULD THEY BE?

Well, probably a chef, because I can’t cook.

Yeah, maybe I could get like Jamie Oliver over, just so he could do all the cooking, and then ugh, who would the other person be? Think.

These questions really get me. I don’t know.

Umm, well for a friend’s wedding we all covered R Kelly ‘I Believe I Can Fly’, but that’s not for an actual gig, but that was a lot of fun.

A few years ago now, but enjoyable. I like doing covers that, you know, are from another genre that you are not associated with.

What should we do? I mean, I don’t even know; we just got here. I was gonna ask you that question. What should we do on a Saturday night in Wellington?

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE HANGOVER FOOD?

Hahaha right. That sounds like you are going to kill me. l

Umm, bacon sandwich is always good. That always helps. You know, it’s got everything you need.

WE’LL SHOW YOU ROUND. YOU SHOULD COME OVER TO OUR FLAT. IT’S A GOOD PLACE FOR A FLAT PARTY.

L i s t e n t o t h e f u l l i n t e rv i e w o n l i n e at S a l i e n t ’s n e w w e b s i t e ,

www

.salient.org.nz

FEATURE

BY HENRY COOKE

Song to listen to while reading: ‘Manifest Destiny’ by Guster

D

o you go to shows?

For a few years on either side of 18, I didn’t. Bars were expensive. Why pay to see the same folk band play the same song about the same girl in the front row every weekend? In 2012, that finally changed – Puppies, a new bar, had just opened, and I felt welldressed enough (I wasn’t) to venture into Mighty Mighty, the upstairs bar known as something of an alt-paradise. Shows meant I had more to look forward to than just ‘booze’ every weekend, and kept me from wallowing in the music I listened to at age 17.

Just two years later, both of them are closing. Mighty Mighty will hold its last show on 24 May, Puppies on 21 June. You should care about this, but you shouldn’t despair.

Let me describe them for a sec. Mighty is an institution, up a very long set of stairs off Cuba Mall, past two bouncers and a door charge.

The space itself is a long, narrow room, perpendicular to the street, which somehow fits a stage, a dancing area, lounge seating, a very long bar, and the second-most-cramped smoking area known to man. The décor is, in a word, eclectic.

Mighty always wants to surprise you. It’s reliable in this – you can drop in there any drinking night and see a DJ making the ‘80s her bitch, or some teenagers hurting their instruments, or a Beyoncé karaoke party, or Lorde’s only Wellington show. “I just always have a good time there,” explains a friend, struggling to remember a particular story. “Once, this lady with giant eyelashes kind of just screamed and hit a drum; we were really into it.” Another friend did their first line in the bathroom, while the members of Lontalius were allowed to trade their free drink credits for a toasted sandwich whenever they played

there. Sally, the co-owner, patched up a friend’s hand when he turned up bleeding, then gave him a shot of tequila for the pain.

Mighty and Puppies probably serve a lot of the same people, but they aren’t all that alike.

Puppies is as a venue with all the annoying shit taken out. Bands start on time, and keep to a strict schedule. It’s always free after 12, the sound never fucks out, and you never feel obligated to buy drinks.

“I tried to make Puppies feel like a cross between a warehouse, danceparty bunker and shitty student flat,” explains Blink, who owns and runs Puppies “‘cause those are the best spaces for shows.” He succeeded.

Puppies sits in a basement on the corner of Tory and Vivian. Its smoking area is basically the steps down to that basement (first-most cramped!). Inside is a kind of weird, large room, with a big concrete pillar, a very low stage, a bar, some seating that nobody ever sits on, and the door to a tiny little room called ‘The Internet’, where the shows are more intimate than a teenage couple at Te Papa. Here is where Blink’s favourite show at Puppies took place, Wellington producer Race Banyon’s release of Whatever Dreams Are Made Of. “His first proper headline show,” explains Blink, “and the sweat was dripping off the ceiling.”

During its short run, Puppies became the de facto home of electronic music in Wellington. “It’s definitely the only venue where I’ve felt happy with the sound quality of electronic music,” explains Race Banyon, real name Eddie Johnston. “Blink also put a lot of thought into lineups; he would make sure the acts playing in a night would work together in a great way.”

Nostalgia is cool and all, but why are they shutting again? Mighty’s owners remain vague, blaming changing circumstances – but it seems likely that their rents will be going way up, as most of the buildings on Cuba St require major earthquake strengthening. Meanwhile, Blink always referred to Puppies as something of a temporary experiment.

Then there’s Wellington itself. We aren’t always the best at turning up to things, or turning up sober, or bothering with a cover charge, or seeking out new music at all. Blink was surprised by how “insular” the Wellington scene is, “how afraid people are of stepping outside of their comfort zones.” We know what we like, which often leads to us not trying out anything new at all.

Blink reeled off a list of other venues – Pyramid Club, 19 Tory St, Fred’s, Understudy, James Cabaret – places I have heard of but never bothered visiting. Then there’s all the steady stalwarts we take for granted, places like Bodega and San Fran. Any cultural economy will have a lot of ‘churn’; that’s the nature of a business that values youth and experimentation. It’s not like Wellington will ever run out of young people keen to have a drink and dance somewhere that isn’t Courtenay Place. In fact – we might have too many venues already.

“We need more house parties,” proclaims Blink. “Gimme some punk energy in a living room any day.”

Not that this isn’t sad. It is. But it isn’t the end. l

Five greatest non-hip-hop albums in alphabetical order: Bloc Party – Silent Alarm Brand New – The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me Los Campesinos! – Romance is Boring Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City The Weeknd – Trilogy

editor@salient.org.nz

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WEIRD IN T ER NE T SH IT B y H e n ry C o o k e

F

rom a laptop on a bed in a bedroom in a flat in Wellington, the voice of the LAPD ring out.

Uh, Portland Street: Four Four Five southwest stairwell, there’s an —inaudible— a break-in to a marijuana dispensary, description: possibly armed with a knife.

It’s 2.56 am on Sunday in LA, so there isn’t that much going on. Break-ins. Stray dogs.

Suspicious driving. Mostly there is silence, gaps in the transmission, time for me to write this. Filling them in, above the sound of my typing, is an almost soothing hum, crackling out from the laptop speakers. It rises and falls,

from comforting to disquieting, sparse notes punctuating the formlessness. I am listening to Los Angeles.

Roger; checking the basement too.

Youarelistening.to is disarmingly simple.

On one page, it combines a police-radio stream from a city of your choice (the default is LA), an extensive playlist of ambient music, and a picture of said city from Flickr. You kind of have to hear it. It feels like being the protagonist in a very sad action film, like witnessing something beautiful that you can’t photograph, like watching the credit sequence after a particularly moving episode of television for hours at a time.

Two Four Five Five Two Four 89…

It’s perfect to work to. Ambient music is generally good for this – but adding in the radio streams keeps it slightly interesting, without quite distracting you. You feel plugged into the world at large, in solidarity with everyone else working through the night, rather than just alone with your essay.

Grey-blue sweater, white shoes, D.O.B. September 12, 1998.

You can customise youarelistening.to extensively, loading in any radio stream you want. You can have it read out tweets in a blank robotic voice, or New York Times

headlines, or aeroplane arrivals. Earlier this year, everyone had a livestream of the Kiev protests going. … possibly being followed by a suspect in a white van, be advised the driver is a female with possible mental illness…

I’ve tried a few, but nothing beats police radios – from LA, from New York, from Saint Petersburg. Wellington Police encrypt their police radio for safety. I don’t know why I find the sounds of things going wrong so comforting. It might be the organisation – the structures of society noticing things and rectifying them. Then, I’m white, so the police are almost always a comforting presence.

43-year-old male, not breathing, and cold.

Someone on the other side of the world just died. Did I incorporate their death into my aesthetic experience?

Artificial structures are more interesting than natural ones. I’d rather explore the endless possibilities of human output than the brute realities of genetics and geology.

Youarelistening.to keeps you aware of all the things around you that keep civilisation going. There’s no stream that allows one to witness the less glamorous tasks – the latenight cleaners, the taxi drivers, the empty-bus driver – but it’s a start.

of Sussex has shown that, during their menstrual cycle, women show preference for composers capable of making more complex music.

Better music-making capability is taken as an indicator of greater fitness, so more accomplished musicians would presumably be more likely to reproduce. But before you start picking up a guitar thinking you can ‘Wonderwall’ your way to procreative success, I’ve got my own piece on the matter: it’s called “Stop Using the Nouveau Field of Evolutionary Psychology to Justify Your Lame Pick-Up Attempts”. Sing along if you know the words.

While religion explains a higher power as the inventor of our inner workings, and humanism heralds our natural rationality, evolutionary psych grounds everything as if on a savannah plain. We march to the beat of a drum telling us to survive, fall in love and procreate, and no trappings of

technology or social attitudes are going to change how we act naturally. The intent is to point out that we are no more than clever animals with easily exploited mental biases. The problem I see is using this idea to excuse everything that people do, and it can lead to some really medieval defences of the sort of behaviours we thought we were past. Evolutionary psych exists not just to explain our nature but to aid us in finding a way around it.

Look, we’re all starved for affection to some degree, but if you need any encouragement that things will work out for you, remember that we’ve been winging this for thousands of years.

Someone out there thinks you’re the cutest thing since bees evolved knees. But if you have to take a scientific approach, I personally prefer the coleopterist’s view: the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Conspiracy Corner “I f M usic be f or F ools L ov ers ”

and

By Incognito Montoya

R

ock and roll has been around since we were still rolling rocks, with the earliest instruments being 40,000 years old. Biology insists that our musical side has to serve some sort of purpose. After all, two drums and a cymbal didn’t just fall off a cliff *ba-dum tish*; it had to be deliberately invented or extrapolated from something we do naturally. Monkey-man Charles Darwin first proposed that music played a part in mate selection in one of his less incendiary books The Ascent of Man. While this makes sense to the birds and bees, to self-important humans the idea can produce a brown note.

Everyone (well, straight men, so “everyone”) subscribes to the idea that an ability to play music will get you laid. It might just be a by-product of the fame and wealth most musicians enjoy, but this isn’t satisfying to a purpose-minded insertfield-of-ologist. Recently, a study at the University

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FOOD

IN REVIEW: M A SA LA

By Julia Wells

CUISINE : I n di a n PRICE : M o d e r a t e BYO: Y e s ,

s t r ic t

ID

checks

M EAL S AND F E E L S

W

With Eve Kennedy

Roc k’ n ’ Roll: P r e - G ig Party S n ack s

I

’d host a dinner party over a party-party any day.

They’re more intimate and there’s less vomit to clean up. If you host a pre-gig starters-and-drinks kind of deal, you won’t have to spend heaps of money feeding everyone and you can clear the whole group out before things get messy.

Chips and dips are a crowd-pleaser, but you don’t have to be ripped off by Lisa and her stupid advertising any longer. Serve these dips with your favourite kind of bread, some olives, sundried tomatoes, cured meats, and call it a mezze platter!

Smoked-eggplant dip If you don’t have a gas oven top, skip the first step: it’ll still be tasty.

Stab the eggplants with a fork. Sit them on top of the gas hob, turned to medium heat, and let them cook. Make sure you have the extractor fan on/ window open or you’ll stink out your flat!

Rotate the eggplants and then when the skin is starting to blacken, take them off the gas (about 10 minutes of cooking). Slice them in half and put them in an oven tray and bake them at medium heat until tender; about 20 minutes.

Scoop the flesh out and put into a blender or food processor. Add the garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and whiz until it’s dip-consistency (smooth enough to spread but not so smooth it’s paste-like). If you want, add some cream cheese for a richer dip, or some tahini for a nutty flavour. Add herbs of your choice if you’re feeling adventurous (I recommend dill/basil/parsley).

Pea dip Boil the peas until they’re just cooked – they still need to be juicy and bright green. Cool them down so they don’t overheat and put them in the blender. Add the cream cheese and blend until smooth, and then add the rest of the ingredients and whiz.

2–3 medium eggplants (more if you want a mountain of dip) 1 tablespoon crushed garlic 3 tablespoons lemon juice Salt and pepper

2 cups peas (frozen is fine) 75 g feta 3 tablespoons cream cheese 1 teaspoon crushed garlic Salt and pepper

hen I got to Masala on Saturday night, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I’d been there before. Masala is one of a number of very similar establishments – Indian BYOs on Allen/Blair St – which gives it (cue pretentious comment) an air of transience and anonymity that didn’t work for me. However, regardless of this, Masala offers a generally good dining experience, particularly for BYOs with larger groups.

Masala’s strongest point was the high quality of service that they provided. Despite the restaurant being moderately full it was easy to attract staff attention and we were well looked after throughout the evening. From the time we ordered, our meals took less than half an hour to arrive and all arrived at the same time, even though there were 15 in the party.

Having spent the afternoon eating Easter eggs, I passed on an appetiser and went straight to the main course. The menu offered the standard range of Indian dishes, but with a larger-than-usual selection. The range of breads and vegetarian curries was particularly impressive. The garlic naan was unusually good, served hot with plenty of butter and garlic.

I was, however, disappointed by my dal makhani. Although the flavour was good and the portion extremely generous, it was much hotter than you would expect a mild curry to be.

Another woman who also ordered a mild curry complained of the same problem. Because I’m really getting into spice-wimpiness-acceptance, I raised the issue with the waiter, who offered to turn it into an extra mild. This definitely improved the heat problem, but the process (which I’m 99 per cent sure was just pouring lots of cream into my dal) left it a little too rich and meant it lost some of the depth of flavour it had had before.

Would I recommend Masala? Yes, with hesitations. It makes a good venue for a larger BYO, with good prompt service, perfectly nice if unremarkable food, and less noise than many places. However, if I were dining in a smaller party, I would prefer a more distinctive and memorable restaurant. editor@salient.org.nz

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CBT This instalment of CBT was brought to you by The Bad Thing.

CBT tells us that flashbacks of unsettling memories sometimes make us feel out of control.

CBT tells us that feeling out of control sometimes makes us feel emotionally vulnerable.

CBT tells us that regaining authority over unsettling flashbacks is sometimes more important than reliving them.

I

’m watching a movie at the movies with my friends and my mouth is dry because I am eating popcorn. I’m laughing quietly. I’m watching a movie and eating popcorn and on the screen there is a girl and her parents and then my thoughts are like ha ha, hey – remember The Bad Thing? My mouth is now coated with The Bad Thing and The Bad Thing is vibrating in my intestines. My teeth – HEY IT’S ME I AM YOUR BAD THING – my teeth are – DO YOU REMEMBER A LACK OF CONTROL – my teeth are encrusted with popcorn husks and I’m getting up and walking to the bathroom and The Bad Thing is in my gait. It’s scorched on the insides of my fisted-up eyes and it’s in my ear’s wax and – I AM HERE IT’S BEEN TOO LONG YOU ARE ME I AM IN YOUR BONE MARROW. I’m in the toilet cubicle and my thoughts are like is this you are not okay is this toilet what is the movie why do popcorn you say what happened? I am letting myself cry hot little tears. I am trying very hard to remember that sometimes I can feel in control without re-living Bad Things every time they infect me, in order to dispel them, so. So I stop. And I’m playing this game whereby I am naming the things I am noticing and this list of thoughts appears obediently in my head like the tile grout, the lock on the wooden door – STOP – the toilet-paper dispenser, the – STOP, the hook, the metal hook on the back of the door, the advertisement on the back of the door, the advertisement with the smiling woman and now I am back in the toilet cubicle and I am 21 with a salty corn mouth. I am remembering that sometimes resisting is creating and that I am good. I’m thinking that I am surprised because my thoughts back there were uncontrollable but kind of like Cher Lloyd in ‘Oath’ in that they were cutely committed to me and they slowly let me know that I was not allowed to go off forever, alone, with my Thing.

CBT tells us that gaining a sense of control over unsettling flashbacks is sometimes as important as reliving them.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is a talk therapy used to treat disruptive thinking as well as diagnosed mental illnesses. Each CBT client will use it in their own way, and students who think it could help them can visit Student Health.

By Jane T 32

the rock & roll issue

M AORI M AT T ERS Māori Music

K

ia toka ia nei te paepae tapu, kei ngā waha kākā nui a Tāne, kei ngā manu tīoriori pari kārangaranga o Rongomaraeroa...”

Ko tātou anō kei te kōrerotia i ēnei kupu nā Te Rangiāhuta, ko ngā waha kākā nui a Tāne he kaiwhaikōrero, ko ngā manu tīoriori nei ko ngā kaikaranga e rāhiri mai ana i te manuhiri kia whakaeke mai i runga i te rangimārie. Pērā anō ngā waiata o mua, he whakanui, he tuitui whakaaro, he tuitui whakapapa, he whakangahau, he whakamaumahara, ā, he pēnei anō te nuinga i ēnei rā.

Kua kore tēnei tikanga i ētahi kaiwaiata o nāianei, kua tahuri kē ki te ao pūoro Pākehā ruku ai i te wai o whakahīhī, āhua whīroki, tikanga kē atu kāore i te hāngai ki te pūoro. I tēnei wiki ka tukuna e Fortafy tana wepu ki te aro ā-kapa Māori (Poronīhia hoki) o Tīhau, mō te hē rawa o te mōmona i runga i te atamira. Ki tāna, kia kitea kētia ko te tūpuhi, kei reira kē te “ātaahua” e kitea ana.

Ehara i te mea me tohunga rawa ki te pūoro Māori e mōhio ai te tangata kāore he paku aha ki te Māori te āhua o te tinana e kīia ai he ātaahua te tū o mea tangata, o mea kapa. Kei te hāngai o te ringa ki te kupu, te tū maia o te tāne, te kopikopi o te wahine, te taki, te rere o te tito – kei reira kē te ātaahua! Kāore kau mā te ineine i te mōmona! Nā reira, e kare mā, i tēnei mārama whakanui i te pūoro o Aotearoa kia taki wero tātou ki ā tātou kaiwaiata Māori o nāianei – he tao rakau e taea e te karo, he tao kī e kore e taea.

It’s us Te Rangiāhuta describes in these words – the manu kākā nui a Tāne, the orators. The manu tīoriori pari kārangaranga o Rongomaraeroa, the kaikaranga. Our old waiata celebrated us, formed opinions, recorded ancestry, entertained and reminded us of past events. Māori music today reflects similar values.

Some seem to have forgotten this, instead dipping into Western music’s pool of arrogance, skinny-ness and other traits that don’t really relate to music at all. This week, Fortafy tweeted that fat people shouldn’t perform in Māori (and Polynesian) groups on stage. Only skinny ones should, because they’re nicer to watch.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that although healthy living IS supported, the absence of fat doesn’t constitute beautiful performances. How action embodies prose, how men and women move insyncs, utterly majestic composition – THAT is beauty! Not merely measuring body fat percentage. So, this NZ Music Month, I urge us all to send a clear message to our contemporary musicians – you can block a swing in a fight, but you can never undo what you say.

By Vini Olsen-Reeder Phone: (04) 463 9762 Email: ngaitauira@vuw.ac.nz

COLUMN

Th e I n tr epid VC Gu i l for d

G

od damn it, I’m sick to bloody hell and back to the moon with all the moping I witnessed this mornin’ on the bus to varsity since my Nissan Lancer is being converted into a hybrid fit for our current envi-ment, so I gotta give you all some more life advice if ya don’t mind me doin’ so. Now it seems to me that you all seem a bit worried about feelin’ trapped and commut-ing to anything worthwhile, like you’ll wake up one day and be in a rut and regrettin’ you ever chose the path you’re on. But it’s not the bloody point now, is it? If you don’t start down at least some path you’ll never end up at the forks in the road that’ll lead you somewhere diff-rent like into the sheep station next door where you can spy on Mrs Harris rolling off her stockings through the cottage window.

Le’me give you an example: before I got to the distinguished posish I am in today, I was pursuing my dream of becoming a world-famous Tango Nuevo dancer. Then one day I fell in love with a gorgeous girl called Tina who was studying Veterinary Science. So I started studying it too, which was the deshishun which ultimately led me to becoming Vice-Chancellor of this here University. Now granted, Tina was actually a soft-skinned boy called Ted who turned out to have a med-cul condish-un that gave him pretty damn udderous man-breasts, and the only reason I got into academia was the threat of havin’ my licence revoked after trying to create a real-life version of The Sims with some reluctant hedgehogs. But that’s all irrelevant, for the fact of the matter is if I’d spent too much time worryin’ about whether a sweet-hearted Otago boy like myself could really have the talent for a bit of one-two-three-four on the dance floor, so to speak, then I’d never have discovered my true calling which turned out to be brushin’ up my lingo and learning a bit about what makes you all tick. No, I just bloody chose something and got on with it until I came to the fork in the road signposted Buenos Aries one way and cheeky hand-shandies from Tina/Ted under the desk during our Biology labs in the other direction.

I hope this has all helped you figure things out a little bit. God damn it, it tears me up to see you all diddling round the bush so badly. Lots of love. Grant.

By Hugo McKinnon

SON YA SAYS

W

eek 9 already! There’s heaps on this week so make sure you keep tabs on what’s happening.

Graduation It’s graduation! This probably isn’t much solace to all current students reading the magazine, dredging through classes and assignments.

However, this week, when you see all the dressed-up graduates taking babin’ photos around university, remember that there is something substantial to look forward to. We’ve teamed up with Breaking Beats to get student-priced tickets to their Graduation show at Bodega on Friday the 16th – you can get $20 student tickets from the VUWSA office.

Student Wellbeing Week This week is Student Wellbeing Week, where Student Counselling, the Rec Centre and VUWSA have been planning a whole heap of activities to promote caring for ourselves and others, and persevering when times are tough. This is crunch-time in the semester, so there’ll be free giveaways, basketball in the Tim Beaglehole Courtyard, and a whole lot of other activities and information out there.

Changes to the number 18 and the Wellington Bus Network As reported in Salient last week, the Wellington Regional Council is proposing a whole lot of changes to the nus network. The main recommendation is the scrapping of the number 18 bus – which is the only bus to link Massey (Mt Cook), Kelburn, Karori and Te Aro campuses. This is really bad, because it will mean there is no direct bus from Newtown and the eastern suburbs to Kelburn Campus – students would have to transfer buses in town. We’ve submitted against these changes, and are meeting with the Greater Wellington Regional Council this week to attempt to negotiate a better deal. In better news, there may be a 25 per cent off-peak concession on bus fares – not quite #fairerfares for tertiary students, but a good start.

Student Voice at Vic – this week Victoria’s annual Student Experience Survey is out this week. This is a decently sized survey, but is full of questions about your experience at Vic and how it could be made better – from services to whether you get the same information when you ask for it in different places. It’s worth filling it in, even if just for the prizes (MacBooks and New World Vouchers).

VUWSA is keen to hear from Geography, Development Studies and Environmental Studies students about their views on their subjects.

Every time the University does a review of a Programme, VUWSA compiles a submission of student views and presents it to the University.

How could these programmes be better? Are there enough tutorials or out-of-class opportunities available? Head along to the survey link to have your say at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RB5TNYV. Email Jay Chhana, VUWSA Education Organiser, at jay.chhana@vuw.ac.nz, if you have any questions.

Have a great week, Sonya Clark VUWSA President M: 027 563 6986 | DDI: (04) 463 6986 | E: sonya.clark@vuw. ac.nz | W: www.vuwsa.org.nz editor@salient.org.nz

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ARTICULAT ED SPL I NE S Construct Additional Pylons I, like most of the discerning movie-going population, went to see The Lego Movie during the break. Upon leaving the Embassy Theatre, the only thing I wanted to do was to feel the silky caress of plastic blocks between my fingers and build a spaceship. Sadly, my childhood Lego stash has long since dissipated, but there are other, more processorintensive ways of making that dream come true.

Minecraft I’ve done it, you’ve done it, your kid sister probably still does it.

Everybody plays Minecraft. Notch, the game’s creator, is an influential figure in the indie game scene, and he’s certainly done well financially.

And for good reason, too: Minecraft is a tightly realised version of a cubic builder’s dream. It led to an explosion of voxel-based games like the others on this list (even if the term ‘voxel’ is hotly debated). That said, it’s pretty vanilla. You dig holes to grab blocks, and stick them elsewhere to make structures. Minecraft shows us the beauty of taking a simple game mechanic and turning it up to 11, and I can’t imagine anybody doing it better.

Space Engineers I recommended this a few columns ago in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it fashion, but it’s worth bringing up again, simply because it has just become my most-played game on Steam. I’ve sunk well in excess of 100 hours into this $20 game, which is notable considering it’s an in-development early-access title. Like every game ever, you gather resources and use them to build things, but Space Engineers is enticing for its novel approach to realistic mining – you actually drill your way into asteroids – and the fantastic building mechanics.

You snap individual blocks and components together to make entirely customised ships, stations and mechanisms. Like Minecraft, there’s a Creative and a Survival Mode, so it’s got that going for it. Being in alpha development means the polish isn’t quite there and a lot of key features are missing, but weekly updates mean it’s guaranteed to be one to keep an eye on. Even if building a spaceship isn’t quite your niche.

BE N T Things Cis people say Being trans* is not easy. In fact, it is probably one of the most difficult things that one could ever go through in their life – it is something that follows you everywhere, from filling out forms to getting a medical examination.

It is difficult for not only you, but for others in your life as well. As a result, sometimes they can say some really stupid shit. This is not necessarily because they’re ignorant or trying to be offensive, but may just need education. If you’re cis and have a trans* friend, or just don’t want to be ignorant, here’s a list of things not to say (or to stop saying). If you’re trans*, here are a few responses that should get the point across that this line of questioning is not okay.

The bottom line is that most trans* people are not okay with being bombarded with questions about their body, sexuality, or transition. If they want to talk to you about it, they will bring it up themselves. Not every trans* person wants to be an activist, and a lot of these people are ‘stealth’ (it is a little-known fact that they are trans*). Outing (telling random people that your friend is trans*) people is hugely dangerous – it can put their lives at risk, trigger a large range of awful feelings, can negatively impact their life both present and future, as well as having a myriad of other adverse consequences.

In short, be respectful.

EverQuest Next and Landmark I may be cheating a bit here: EverQuest Next is a long way from release and its world-building sibling Landmark is still in the early stages of limited release, but hoo boy does it look cool. Landmark is your classic brickbuilder with mining and a stupendous amounts of tools. It’s a wee bit complex for my abilities, but that’s not a problem. I’m more looking forward to the release of big brother Next, which is touted as the first voxel-based MMORPG. With every inch of the environment being destructible, and the potential to have player-built structures in the world, we could be in for something very special. Among the wanton destruction and dick cities, I mean.

Shit cis people say: • So how do you have sex?

• Do you have a penis/vagina?

• No one will you just ever love you.

• Why can’t you just accept and love the body that you were born with?

• You’re just a really feminine gay man/butch lesbian.

• I miss the old you.

• You know I’m trying, I call you the right name.

• This is just sooo hard for me.

• What was your birth/real/old name?

• You should find a nice dykey girl/a femme boy.

• You’re tearing the family apart!

Things to say in response: • You want to find out right now?

• Do you?

• At least I’ll be happy with myself and who I am.

• My brain doesn’t match my body, and I will never be comfortable in my own skin otherwise.

• There’s a difference between gender and sexuality.

• The old me was never who I really was.

• Do you want a reward for that?

• And being trans* is so easy for me.

• Freddie Mercury.

• ‘cause lesbians date men/gay men date women.

• YOU’RE TEARING ME APART, LISA (but in all seriousness, lightly suggest that they get some counselling to help them).

by Carlo Salizzo

by Charlie Prout & Dominic Cowell-Smith

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COLUMN

S h i rt & Sw e e t your weekly column on how to be annoyed but still cute.

T

he gig life is only getting harder in Wellington, what with the unreasonably proximate deaths of both Puppies and Mighty.

However, this is by no means an indication of diminishing numbers of reasonable local acts. If anything, the longer you are in Wellington, the more likely you are to find yourself sucked into a far-from-bottomless (in that they frequently have great butts) pit of musicians who you not only admire but also know. Venue-wise, there’s still Bodega kicking around, not to mention the increasing plausibility of flat-based gigs.

Hence, it is invaluable to know: How to be cute and shirty when you’re gigging out

A

side from the obvious possibility of sleeping with any and/or all of the performing band members, there are other ways to let everyone present know that the gig life is your life. The most key feature to be aware of here is dance. Dance, as a physically poetic and pleasurable expression of the inner self, is an integral feature of any kind of cute existence, and so it is important that you master it as a skill in order to remix it (let’s not talk about that) with your best-fitting shirtiness. What you’ll need to do is just immediately forget any kind of formal dance training you’ve ever had. You need to be dancing like you never learnt which section of space your body actually inhabits.

But give off vibes that say: “If you put your body near mine then I will definitely remember which section of space my body inhabits and that section of space will be all up and in and on and around you and you will like that a lot.” Dance like there’s nothing and no one in the room except the sound that is happening so much.

The one thing that you definitely must never do while at a gig is stand with your back against a wall and bob your head. This is known as ‘too much shirt not enough cute’, and the problem that you will experience if you do this is known as ‘having a shit time.’

Furthermore, do not instagram the gig (or anything, TBH). Ever.

And if you actually have like a proper addiction and you will start shaking and aching if you don’t instagram something then for the love of all that is good and intimidating, just don’t put your instagramming device in front of anyone else’s eyeline. If you are at a gig and someone puts an instragramming device in your line of sight, you must smile sweetly and pose for a selfie with owner of said device. Then you must seize the device and drop it into the nearest vessel of alcohol.

Congratulations. You have firmly positioned yourself in the tradition of all those adorable and terrifying who have come before you. You’re doing the gig life right.

OVERS E E N AT VIC Harold First - Year English What is the meaning of life? 42.

By Eleanor Merton editor@salient.org.nz

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NICK P I TC H E R Nick Pitcher is a second-year Design student at Te Aro Campus. He made this poster of Bob Dylan as part of his DSDN 142 Creative Coding Course.

JARRED CHRISTISON Jarred Christison made this PIK Stool as part of his Industrial Design degree at Te Aro. The PIK Stool is a guitar amplifier that doubles as a seat. Christison sought to combine “the joy of playing music with the elegance and comfort of furniture design�.

Send us your creative work to editor@salient.org.nz.

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FILM

A RT S If you want to write about the arts, or think there is something we should review, email arts @ salient . org . nz .

NINE REASONS WHY I R E GR E T S P E N DI NG $ 1 2 O N T R A N S C E N D E NC E

By Charlotte Doyle

1. Plot summary: They build a supercomputer invincibility. with a human conscience, take over a nothing town in the desert and create zombies. Pretty much.

2. Lacklustre character development: For

ground-breaking scientists who are supposedly striving to save the world, their success at fucking up everyone else’s lives in blindly pursuing their selfish delusions was phenomenal.

3. Unconvincing love story: They declare themselves to be partners in “both research and life”, but other than their shared nerdy interest in computer science there was no chemistry.

4. Both morally dubious and confusing, the

5. The ending is predictable within half an hour,

helped by a damning prelude and a shallow plot.

Somehow, the level of disappointment was still unexpected, with the appearance of the credits unhealthily sparking anger. your husband to a computer by putting spikes in his brain in an abandoned unsterilised school hall when he is dying of radiation poisoning and getting away with it.

7. There is a sickeningly clichéd sunflower metaphor.

8. Johnny Depp wasn’t even a saving grace,

IN OTHER FILM NEWS:

comedy sitcom to rival that of Curb was promptly rejected by HBO, saving us all), just in case you couldn’t already get enough, hold out for his debut feature film. With strange American Psycho references, the trailer has recently been released online. However, somehow unsurprisingly considering his acting skills, the man himself will remain elusive. Kim, however, will play a key role in this biopic directed by Hype Williams. There is no release date as of yet, but Kanye plays by his own rules. It’s bound 2 be a treat.

he reveal of the cast for Star Wars Episode VII, in combination with ‘May the Force’ i.e. Star Wars Day, has reignited a frenzy of obsession. Should the legacy be left as just that? Or does it need to be redeemed, considering how it was left with the prequel trilogy? Is it simply a moneymaking venture? Or left in the able hands of J. J. Abrams to complete the vision of George Lucas? In any case, we will hopefully see awkward Adam from Girls engage in a lightsaber battle with Harrison Ford. May the force continue.

Although Kanye’s claim to be the “black Larry David” will never be realised by the general public (the pilot episode of his

9. Time lapses: There seemed to be no awareness of how building a five-storey underground

6. Questionable ethical decisions: Uploading super-lab that governs the world would not

film advertises geoengineering to the point of almost glorifying its development as a harbinger of environmental replenishment and human

T

expressions were sadly not enough. As the voice of a computer, he excelled, managing to still conjure the impression of his twitchy pout; however, otherwise, he simply looked blank and bored.

proving himself to be a truly terrible actor beyond pirates and crazy candy manufacturers.

His terribly attractive deep eyes and brooding

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt will showcase their unshakeable relationship side by side in a movie for the first time since Mr. & Mrs. Smith sparked everything. There is no information on what this movie will be or when it is, but according to an ‘insider’, it cannot be missed. Maybe don’t hold your breath in expectation of better news.

be possible in a couple of days. Serious flaw in attention to detail.

It is not, however, exactly a boring movie, with the pace holding your frustrated attention to the screen in spite of forsaking much-needed sophistication. The use of concepts such as nanotechnology and experimentation on monkeys made it more plausible than other scifi thrillers, and scenes involving explosions were perfectly timed. Plus, when is it ever justified to criticise Morgan Freeman?

“ B R A NG E L I N A ”

editor@salient.org.nz

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MUSIC

T E N S O NG S YO U S L E P T O N OV E R T H E B R E A K

BY H E N RY C O O K E Lil Wayne feat. Drake - ‘Believe Me’

Bobby Tank - ‘Undone’

Jamie xx - ‘Girl’

First Jay-Z tore it up on a Jay Elec song, now Lil Wayne is spitting excellent verses again?

Drake’s on his game too, and the Vinylz x Boi-1da–produced beat is something to be reckoned with. Tha Carter V is supposed to drop sometime in May, possibly by the time this goes to print; y’all best be excited.

There is way too much going on in this track, way too many clicky drums and red-herring synth leads and stuttering vocal samples, but it’s a hell of a ride. This is what I thought we would be listening to in 2014 in 2004.

Once again proving he was wasting away in the overly consistent band that brought him fame, Jamie xx’s ‘Girl’ sounds like a video-game helicopter taking off over a raging sea of vocal samples and reverb. There is a lot going on here, but it all fits together perfectly, although I don’t know whether he wants me to dance or take a lie-down.

Royksopp feat. Robyn - ‘Do It Again’

This is a standard Robyn track, all glittery vocals, throbbing synths and fierce hooks. Standard Robyn tracks are fucking great tho.

Montreal Sex Machine - ‘ Blackout’

Shit sounds like a Franz Ferdinand track with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem singing.

Get your 2004 on.

Lontalius - ‘yr heart is beating’

This came out before the break and has already found its way onto Ryan Hemsworth sets, but I still feel the need to push it on more people. A perfect love song.

Lykke Li – I Never Learn Review by Henry Cooke

B

allads, bro. Ballads as far as the eye can see.

I Never Learn is a sad album. I was having a pretty good afternoon before I put it on; now it feels like 4 am on a lonely Saturday. She’s down, but accepting of it. Defiant, even. This sounds like two weeks after a breakup: the immediate pain/pleasure has dissipated, now you’re just getting used to your new life, missing hundreds

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Sweatshop Boys - ‘Benny Lava’

This also came out a bit before the break, but shit only has like 30k YouTube views, so I feel okay about ‘uncovering’ it. Produced by Ryan Hemsworth and featuring Heems (Das Racist) and Riz MC. The beat is sweet, but as always, it’s Heems who really kills here. While we’re talking Heems, his verse on the official remix of Vampire Weekend’s ‘Step’ is very important.

Popstrangers - ‘Don’t Be Afraid’

This isn’t quite as good as the other preview track from Fortuna, the excellent ‘Country Kills’. It’s a bit more jammy, a bit less hooky, but it’s still an excellent song from a New Zealand rock band, so snap that shit up.

of little things but realising these feelings are understandable, even slightly desirable. This is an album for wallowing.

You don’t even have to put it on to get the feel; just look at the track names. ‘Love Me Like I’m Not Made of Stone’. ‘Sleeping Alone’. ‘Never Gonna Love Again’.

If you’re looking for another ‘I Follow Rivers’, you’re not going to find it here. This is a short album of somewhat similar songs. But it’s really good. Lykke Li can sing better than any of you.

Every melody feels refined, every soaring chorus carefully planned out. The drums throb with

Nicki Minaj - ‘Yasss Bish!! (feat.

Soulja Boy)’

Nicki continues her excellent run of tracks, even if the hook is just Soulja Boy chanting “yas bish yas”. This isn’t the best Nicki song in the world, but there’s a fierce verse or two here, and from what she’s been saying in interviews, there’s a lot more to come. Can’t wait.

Cholombian - ‘Shelter Me (feat.

Sangam and Gee)

This is just a pleasant ethereal rap track from someone I’ve never heard of. There’s nothing like finding completely new music, is there?

energy, while the rest of the instrumentation kind of pleasantly fade into the background, occasionally popping up for a few singular piano keys or, of course, acoustic guitar strumming, the traditional weapon of the sad song. A friend said it sounded like Phil Collins, and she wasn’t wrong. Right now, ‘Gunshot’ is the track I keep going back to. But this is the kind of album you like in waves; I’m sure I’ll have a phase with nearly every song on here.

This is not an album that you will love immediately, but it is an album that you will go back to.

MUSIC

FIVE -CORES THAT ACTUALLY EXIST (according to Last.fm) • Nintendocore • Artcore • Dildocore • Garmoshkacore • Nanocore

ILLMATIC TURNS 20 A retrospective by Rowan Carter

N

as’s seminal contribution to East Coast hip-hop turned 20 this April. Nas was 20 when he released Illmatic. I was 20 when I cranked Illmatic the hardest. If you’re 20, you should listen to Illmatic.

Illmatic’s strengths lie in Nas’s unique narrative style and his ability to create vivid imagery. We get images from his past, growing up in the Queensbridge projects, and images of the future of hip-hop too. None of the ten tracks on the album feel their age, but specifically, ‘It Ain’t Hard to Tell’ and ‘N.Y. State of Mind’ sound entirely relevant and at home in the industry they helped shape.

Throughout Illmatic, Nas pioneers his own style of narrative storytelling, one which he definitely flaunts in tracks like ‘One Love’. It’s super-apt that Illmatic comes of age just after Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

Taste Nasa – No Questions Asked EP Review by Gou

I

first heard of Taste Nasa the way one often hears of most New Zealand artists – via a text from a friend, normally along the lines of: “Hey a m8 of mine is playing a gig at [insert tiny bar here] and I need someone to go with. They’re really good I promise!”

I obliged. Mostly because another producer I love was playing and the gig was

has firmly placed narrative storytelling back in rap-industry vogue. Special mention for ‘The World Is Yours’, which with Nas’s lyricism/ flow and Pete Rock’s golden meddling is considered one of the greatest hip-hop songs ever recorded and one of my personal favourite tracks of all time.

To mark the 20th anniversary, the album has been re-released under the title Illmatic XX, featuring an additional two tracks recorded in the early ‘90s and eight alternate recordings/ mixes of the original ten. Nas also has a feature-length documentary planned for the 2014 film-festival circuit titled Time Is Illmatic, which looks into the making of the album and tracks its legacy within the industry.

Illmatic is widely considered one of the best hip-hop records of the ‘90s, if not of all time, and is at the top of my list (alongside OutKast’s Aquemini). Illmatic is great, everybody knows it’s great. Give it a listen if you somehow managed to miss that. sponsored by Red Bull. I got free entry and a free drink, my friend never even made it.

Boy did she miss out.

As far as I can tell by his Red Bull profile, Taste Nasa is the brainchild of Leroy Clampitt from Pirongia. Summery NZ feel-goodness permeates his EP, a tiny body of work only four songs long. Every song is quality and single-worthy, however, and it only leaves you wanting more. The yacht-rock influences are heavy, but with so much more disco and funk going on. The entire EP is flawless, from the dulcet piano melodies of ‘Night Guy’ to the bass lines of ‘No Ordinary Touch’.

It’s New Zealand music that actually sounds like it came from someone who knew what they were doing, and I really have so much confidence, if this EP and the commercial sponsorship are anything to go by, that Taste Nasa will last for longer than just a summer.

FIVE -CORES ACTUALLY WORTH CHECKING OUT • • • • •

Hardcore Mathcore Deathcore Grindcore Slowcore

FIVE REASONS ROCK IS DEAD • • • • •

Hip-hop is funner is to write about Kings of Leon Guitars are played out Lack of drop Kanye West

FIVE REASONS ROCK IS DOING FINE • • • • •

Your dad Emo Vampire Weekend Lack of drop Still needed for beer ads

TO CHECK OUT : New Zealand’s own

Tiny Ruins has their second album up to stream at The New York Times website. If you’re into folk-pop and good bands in general, you should check it out.

For more updates follow salient_music ON TWITTER

editor@salient.org.nz

39

BOOKS

IN RE V I E W THE FAMILIES O’Sullivan

by Vincent

Reviewed by Nina Powles

I

’m the sort of reader who’s allergic to short stories. When I read, I always like to give the text my all or nothing. I’m too stubborn to start a piece of writing that I know will finish a few pages later, just as I’ve really gotten into it.

This surely makes me the least qualified person to review The Families, a new collection of stories by Vincent O’Sullivan. Many older readers will pick up this book when the author’s name catches their eye; O’Sullivan is one of New Zealand’s literary giants and is currently our Poet Laureate. For those of us who are less familiar with his work – me included – we might approach with apprehension.

The Families collects portraits of middle-class New Zealanders connecting themselves to the people and places around them. It’s fraught with love, grief, humiliation, suppression, and fractured family ties. But it’s rendered simply and often endearingly. O’Sullivan is a gentle storyteller who beckons us forth slowly. We find ourselves submerged in the fictional world before even realising it, maybe because his stories are set in real places. His characters will walk down Oriental Parade into a southerly, or drive around the winding Eastern Bays, or stop for flat whites at a gift shop in Cambridge, just south of Hamilton. I can conjure up the feeling of that wind in my face without so much as a thought. Wellington readers, especially, will find much to savour in this book.

One of my favourites is ‘On Another Note’, which was written to fill in the blanks of an unfinished short story by Katherine Mansfield.

It recounts a lonely woman’s few days in Paris. The subtle shifts in consciousness cleverly echo Mansfield’s writing. And Paris, like Wellington in other stories, is not only viewed but created through the eyes of the characters.

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Sometimes O’Sullivan’s characters are slightly less believable, as in ‘Frame’ where he tries to inhabit the mind of an immigrant wife, though the story is still captivating. ‘The Families’ gave the collection its title, so I expected something monumental, but it falls flat. He doesn’t quite afford his young heroine enough depth. Her choices won’t be convincing to some (like me), but then, perhaps I’m not the reader he had in mind.

A real high point is ‘Josie’. where O’Sullivan creates an incredibly freeflowing and realistic narrative voice. It makes for a thoroughly good read. An elderly woman grapples with the memory of her late husband and his gruff voice sometimes infiltrates her memories. It is so clear and distinct that we hear it, too.

The book sometimes lacks colourful or beautiful imagery, instead tending towards clear, lucid description. But in ‘Josie’, O’Sullivan finds a balance between the two. There are some stunning, simple moments: “She is standing where everything in the world is pure darkness apart from the light she is standing in … Sometimes she is herself and at other times there are lines she needs to say that make her someone else, but it doesn’t bother her if she fails to say them.”

These brilliant lucid moments are what make this book special, though at times they feel few and far between. But when you do find them, already transported by O’Sullivan’s mastery of so many voices and places, they are worth it.

WHAT WE’RE READING

Jordan, Philosophy student “Underworld by Don DeLillo; postmodernist door-stopper that critiques and vindicates capitalist bourgeois sensibilities.”

Simon, Maths student “M/F by Anthony Burgess, about a guy getting kicked out of uni for public sex.”

Philip, Salient feature writer “I am re-reading Austerlitz. I’m also reading Sweet Tooth and it’s a) completely facile but also b) impossible to put down. Dammit, McEwan.”

Daisy, Environmental Science student

“I like reading about serial killers on Wikipedia.”

TELEVISION

HISTORY? MORE LI K E H ER STORY

by

R

Chloe Davies

ust Spencer, Don Draper, Walter White, Francis Urquhart, Frank Underwood; the list could go on. All straight, white, troubled, men*. Both lists could go on and on. The thing is, not all the shows these men feature on are crap. In fact, they’re actually quite good. It’s just that I’m a little tired of constantly seeing this type: you know the one, the ‘melancholy man’, with a proclivity for a drink and a smoke and a lot of sex with women that aren’t their wives or girlfriends. These men all have a lot going for them character-wise: they’re complex, multifaceted, a bundle of strange discrepancies. Yet their female counterparts are left wading the depths of, well, not much actually.

In the 1980s, American cartoonist Alison Bechdel invented the Bechdel Test. The Test’s purpose was to determine whether the female characters in any work of fiction have a bit more going for them than just looking pretty as plot devices for male characters.

To pass the test, the work: 1. Has to have at least two [named] women in it; 2. Who talk to each other; 3. About something besides a man.

True Detective is exactly the kind of show that would exponentially fail this test. I enjoyed the show, but a few episodes in, I began to think: “Where my flawed-yet-loveable ladies at?!” (or something along those lines). It’s disappointing, yet sadly unsurprising. The show actually features the virgin, the mother, and the whore. I mean come on.

The main problem with flat representations of women in television is that we then expect women to be like those characters.

Which does everyone a disservice, because women are people and people are just nothing like these characters. Think of Penny on The Big Bang Theory, or basically any of the characters in Two and a Half Men. No one is like that. Ever. Our female characters need flaws; they need to be complex, and relatable.

It really shouldn’t be this hard. Which is exactly why shows like Lena Dunham’s Girls are so important. Dunham created Girls because every woman she knows is just a “bundle of contradictions”, and although the lack of racial diversity in the cast is frustrating to say the least, the show stands as one of, if not

the best representations of women on television today.

It doesn’t fetishise the intimacy in female friendship; it relishes in both friendship and familial relations in a way that hadn’t really been depicted in such a specific and mainstream-success kind of way. The show’s frank portrayal of sex and the human body has led to such a huge discussion surrounding it. Which seems strange. It’s odd to think that before Dunham got naked onscreen, we’d never really been exposed to a body that wasn’t the whole society’s-viewof-what-is-attractive-in-a-woman.

It’s refreshing to see a show like Girls succeed, and hopefully its success will inspire more shows with a similar disposition for strong female leads. More recently, two comedians, Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, have created a show named Broad City (also exec-produced by Amy Poehler!). Which ticks all the “Hell yeah, ladies” boxes, and basically embodies the Bechdel Test. Shows like these are breaking down the tired patriarchal constructs of the TV networks and bringing about some much-needed positive change in the depiction of women on our screens. Let’s hope there’ll only be more to come. *I urge you to google ‘Male Novelist Jokes’.

Five Empowered Female Characters:

1. Buffy Summers 2. Rae Earl 3. Lesley Knope 4. Liz Lemon 5. Elaine Benes

editor@salient.org.nz

41

VISUAL ART

THE NEW WHITE

by Duncan Hope

G

erman essayist and author Thomas Mann was once quoted as saying that “everything is political”. The art gallery is not immune to this.

Infused with ideology, the gallery is an intensely political arena where every curatorial decision aids the construction of the exhibition’s pervasive narrative. The curator and their creative team present a cleansed universe parallel – not separate – to our own in which they tell us about someone, something or ourselves. Things that in that parallel universe cannot be creatively challenged. It is a world of its own.

The modern art gallery aims to provide an academic sanctuary by blocking out the world around it through the use of its sanitising white painted walls. Functional, clean and crisp, these walls are the blank canvases onto which the curator paints their ideas. White is neutral.

It is the amalgamation of all colours and yet presents itself as a bright nothingness. Its supposed unadulterated nature connotes purity, spirituality, and the beauty of silence. Temples of culture with expansive, piercingly bright chalk-coloured walls are what we have come to expect from our art galleries. But it wasn’t always like this.

The gallery’s barren landscape of sparsely adorned white walls is very much a modern construction. In the galleries of Pompeii and the Italian Renaissance, pictures were hung within the limitations of the pre-existing architectural structure. Often hanging on brightly coloured walls, the art had an intimate relationship with the gallery as it fitted itself around the design of a non-purpose-built space. In the famous French salons of the 18th and 19th century, paintings were hung on top of each other in a visual hierarchy which placed epic history paintings in the plum eye-level position. The walls of the salons were also often painted red in an attempt to portray warmth, passion, love and desire.

It was only with the advent of Modernism that we saw the invention of the ‘white cube’. Perhaps in accordance with the movement’s underpinning theme of self-reflection, agents in the art world put the gallery space under the microscope as they searched for a innovative way to exhibit revolutionary new art. The solution of a white-walled interior was not only self-reflective, but also appealed to Modernism’s fascination with the utilitarian ideals of form and function. Pioneered by the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the 1930s, the intention of the new design was to create a neutral space where art could be objectively

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viewed against a blank background. Unlike the intoxicating colours of former exhibition-spaces, the white walls provided a sobering viewing experience where art lost its illusory qualities and was presented as paint on canvas. The redesign of the art gallery is undeniably a by-product of the Modernist Revolution.

Writer Thomas McEvilley, however, views the ‘white cube’ as a modern reimagining of the Palaeolithic tomb galleries which were “designed to eliminate awareness of the outside world”. The space giving the impression of being outside of or beyond time acted as a spiritual portal between this world and the next where a person’s soul and the worldly goods they had accumulated could travel to the afterlife. As I said in the introduction, the modern art gallery presents itself to us as a parallel universe: a cocoon where the outside world exists only in the imagination of the viewers.

Instead of the real world, viewers are immersed in a pseudo-spiritual haven where they are ‘enlightened’ by the presence of gallery-quality art.

In my opinion, however, the white-wall revolution has gone too far.

Contemporary galleries, instead of being temples to great art, now pay homage to the MoMA tradition with blinding white walls that dwarf the art that hangs on them. While I love City Gallery Wellington, they are a prime example of this. Simon Starling’s In Speculum (at City Gallery until 18 May) is as much an exhibition about Starling’s quirky and complex installations as it is about the august and overbearing internal architecture. Three White Desks, a fabulous installation piece where three cabinetmakers produce copies of painter Francis Bacon’s studio desk from different sources, is exhibited in a gallery furnished solely by towering pearly partitions. While this may have been at the artist’s request, the imposing nature of the walls minimises the ability of the cabinets to speak to the themes of the installation.

It also seems lazy and unimaginative. I would have liked to have seen sketches from Bacon’s carpentry days – something to anchor the installation and help cultivate meaning. Instead we get what we get all too often: the silencing of art by spatial domination; the favouring of utilitarianism over the production of meaning; and the pervasiveness of outdated Modernist ideals.

The reign of the white walls must come to an end. It’s time for something new.

WHATS ON Music

Wednesday, from 5 pm onwards Free entry, $4 pints!

The Jezabels Thursday 15 May, 8 pm Bodega, $35

Books

Emily Mwila Friday 16 May, 7 pm Veni Vidi Vici, free but it would be kind of weird if you didn’t buy food Best of Squarewave Festival Friday 16 May, 8 pm Puppies, $9 Force Fields With The Neo–Kalashnikovs Saturday 17 May, 8 pm Bodega, $10 Street Chant + Mermaidens + Gains + Blink’s DJ set Saturday 17 May, 9 pm Puppies, $10 Bodega Live Music Pint Night

pilgrimage.

The Broken Circle Breakdown – A Belgian drama, based on a play. Tells the tale of a love story between two people from different backgrounds.

Poetry Society monthly reading Monday 19 May, 7.30 pm at The Thistle Inn, $5 entry

TV New Mad Men and Game of Thrones out every Sunday

Film Coming out this Thursday: Aim High in Creation – Comedic documentary about Australian filmmaker Anna Broinowski.

Fading Gigolo – Woody Allen stars in this John Turturro (who also stars) film. Also featuring Sofia Vergara. Dayum.

Godzilla – Godzilla is a radioactive giant; my guess is that he terrorises an American city. May be worth a watch in 3D. In Search of Chopin – Latest in the In Search Of series, directed by Phil Grabsky. Frédéric François Chopin was a composer who lived in France; his grave remains a site of

Visual Arts The Man in the Hat: Special Screening City Gallery, 18 May, Free A documentary portrait of art dealer Peter McLeavey.

Roger Mortimer & Sam Mitchell Bartley + co, until 24 May Geoff Dixon: Pictures from Calendars Bowen Galleries, until 24 May

VBC 88.3 GUIDE BREAKFAST 8 .10 A M

MONDAY

TUESDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

10 A M NOON NOON 2.00PM

MUSIC, NEWS, INTERVIEWS, GIVEAWAYS

ROBANDTAMMY

2.00 4.00PM DRIVE 4 - 7PM

DEAD MAN MONDAY

WITH CASEY & JOSS

WITH DUNCAN & CAM

TBC

WITH ELEANOR & SIMON

STREET KNOWLEDGE

WITH SAM & HUGH

TUNES WITH TAMBLY INFIDEL CASTRO

WITH PHILIP MCSWEENEY

2 4 1

DEAD BOYSʼ PIRATE RADIO WITH WILL

DEAD AIR

RAW POLITIK

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WITH OLLIE & ASHER

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WITH MR ROBATO

SASAENG SATURDAYS

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7. 0 0 9.00PM 9.00 11 . 0 0 P M

THURSDAY

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11 P M 1. 0 0 A M

WEDNESDAY

WITH CIARAN & SOPHIE

THURSDAY DRIVE WITH A.D.D

BAD SCIENCE

SIGNAL SOUNDS

SUPERFLUOUS SUPERHEROS

WITH TIM & ALEX

WITH HOLLY, S TUMBLE, GOOSEHEAD & VIC SERATONIN

WITH MATT & FRIENDS

WITH LOU

THE B-SIDE REVOLUTION

WITH RICHARD

PRE-LOAD

THE NIGHT SHIFT WITH CHRIS

The VBC is the Victoria University student radio station. You can tune in on 88.3FM or stream it live at involved, email the Station Manager, Rob Barrett, at vbc 883 fm @ gmail . com .

www . vbc . org . nz .

If you want to get

editor@salient.org.nz

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9

3

1

5

2

5 9

8 6 4

1 9 3 2

4

9

3 7 2 4 6

2

6

8

6

3 7

5

7

4 5

2 8

4 5

6 7

8 1

9

4

6 9

1 2

2

7 5 3

Down 1. Bragged with one mouth full? (7) 2. Ernie’s pal first found Heather. (5) 3. A most uncommon way of cooking steak? (6) 4. Two options for delivery for those that are needed. (4,2,5) 5. A beheaded villain, Liz and a youth leader made up the avian colony (7) 6. Initially, a big yawning space stood before us. (5) 8. Mr Paul Rouch went wild for this band. (6,5) 12. A liberal way of reading for the blind. (7) 14. In Wales, Rhona cuddled a theologian. (7) 15. A TV detective who was a bit of a big shot! (6) 16. The optical measure requires the figurehead to halt. (1,4) 18. A wet and foolish time. (5)

7

2 3 8

5 9 3 4

3

7

2 1

2

9

1

0-15 words: aw :( 16-25 words: smaverage 26-35 words: learned 35+ words: hey wordsmith

churned into cheese. (9)

3

8 1 9 6 7

5 9

PUZZLE TIME

Quiz 1. What is Motörhead’s favourite playing card?

2. Why were Shihad temporarily forced to change their name after 9/11?

3. Bob Dylan’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’ was most famously covered by which artist?

A reliable cheap and convenient link between Lambton Quay and Victoria University’s Kelburn Campus.

A Cable Car every 10 minutes and student fares from just 87 cents one way* *Student 30 trip concession.

4. All members of the Arctic Monkeys are from which English city?

5. ‘Teen Spirit’, made famous by the Nirvana song, is a brand of which product?

6. Complete the following quote from The Simpsons episode ‘Homerpalooza’: “Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins.”

7. ‘London Calling’, ‘Train in Vain’ and ‘White Riot’ are songs by which punk-rock band?

8. True or false: despite famously championing the ‘Dunedin Sound’, Flying Nun Records was actually formed in Christchurch.

9. According to Guns N’ Roses, “it’s hard to hold a candle” in the cold rain of which month?

10. What do bands the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and the Dead Weather have in common?

student discount mondays Womens cut/blowdry $60 Mens cut $45

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Would you rather?

Would you rather be able to walk through walls, or fly?

Would you rather have a pencil that was always sharp, or a pen that never ran out of ink?

Would you rather live in a submarine, or a blimp?

Would you rather eat a cheese scone, or a savoury muffin?

Would you rather have dinner with Nigella, or Jamie Oliver?

Would you rather have sex with Alex Turner and everyone think you were lying, or not have sex with Alex and everyone think you had?

Would you rather be the best instrumentalist in the world, or the best vocalist in the world?

1. The ‘Ace of Spades’ 2. It sounded too similar to ‘jihad’ 3. Jimi Hendrix 4. Sheffield 5. Deodorant 6. “Homer Simpson, smiling politely.” 7. The Clash 8. True 9. November 10. Vocalist Jack White editor@salient.org.nz

45

notices

TOASTMASTERS Would you like to improve your publicspeaking skills? Gain more confidence and become a better leader? Why not come to one of our meetings and see whether Toastmasters could be the answer. Victoria University Toastmasters meets every Wednesday in Room 219 (Opposite main entrance Student Memorial Theatre) at 12 noon. See you there!

2014/15 Internships Graduate Jobs!

and

Applications closing soon: Organisations: Closing Date The Boston Consulting Group: 12 May Opus International Consultants: 14 May Anderson Creagh Lai: 16 May Frucor Beverages: 16 May Honeywell: 19 May GHD: 22 May Tonkin & Taylor: 23 May Murray & Co: 30 May Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust (Maori): 1 Jun Scott Technology NZ: 1 Jun Deutsche Bank: 24 Jul Upcoming Free Careers Events for all students Campus Careers Expo – 15 May ICT Careers Expo – 16 May Fisher & Paykel – 16 May Law: Overseas Postgraduate in Law – 20 May Xero – 22 May Check details/book on CareerHub: www. victoria.ac.nz/careerhub

46

the rock & roll issue

If you want a notice in Salient, email us at editor@salient.org. nz. Notices must be sent to us by Wednesday 5 pm for the following week’s issue, and must be fewer than 100 words in length.

giveaways Tell us your favourite Lawrence Arabia song and go in the draw to win a double pass to Lawrence Arabia’s Wellington Shows.

YOUTH FOR UN WOMEN NZ • Event title: UN Women NZ Pub Quiz Fundraiser • Event date: Thursday 15 May • Event time: 4.30–6 pm • Event location: The Hunter Lounge • Event description: Youth for UN Women NZ is hosting a pub-quiz fundraiser and wants to invite YOU to join the fun! Bring your mates and test your trivia knowledge while supporting an awesome cause. We’re raising funds for UN Women Aotearoa New Zealand and all their wonderful projects, including the Solomon Islands Gender Justice Project. There’ll be cheap drinks and prizes!

Check out www.facebook.com/ YouthforUNWomenNZ for more info, and we hope to see you there!

BUSINESS & INVESTMENT CLUB The Business and Investment Club (BIC,

VIC OE – VIC STUDENT www.bic.org.nz) invites you to the next guestEXCHANGE PROGRAMME – speaker event “Sweet business: The story APPLY NOW behind Whittakers” by Philip Poole, the NEXT DEADLINE: 16 JULY for Tri 1, 2015 exchanges!

Why not study overseas as part of your degree?!

Study in English, earn Vic credit, get StudyLink and grants, explore the world!

Weekly seminars on Wednesdays, Level 2, Easterfield Building, 12.50 pm Website: http://victoria.ac.nz/exchange Visit us: Level 2, Easterfield Building Drop-in hours: Mon–Wed 1–3 pm, Thurs & Fri 10 am – 12 pm

marketing manager of Whittaker’s. Philip will tell us the story of how Whittaker’s got started, some of their great successes, how he as a manager runs and grows the business on the owners’ behalf, what the mentality is behind Whittaker’s; he will mention the entrepreneurial values of the Whittaker family (what drives them, why they decided to start a chocolate business etc.), what his role of marketing manager involves in his everyday work life, and will also talk about their award-winning online marketing campaign. This event is a must for all marketing students! Takes place on Monday 19 May, 4.30 pm @ room SU218 (Student Union Building, Kelburn Campus).

contributors editors: Duncan McLachlan & Cameron Price d e s i g n e r : I m o g e n Te m m news editor: Sophie Boot c r e at i v e e d i t o r : C h l o e Dav i e s c h i e f s u b - e d i t o r : N i c k Fa r g h e r distributor: Joe Morris f e at u r e w r i t e r : P h i l i p M c S w e e n e y ( c h i e f ) , P e n n y G a u lt , Alex Hollis w e b e d i t o r : D e x t e r E d wa r d s n e w s i n t e r n s : S i m o n D e n n i s , S t e p h Tr e n g r o v e arts editors: Nina Powles (Books), Charlotte Doyle (Film), H e n r y C o o k e ( M u s i c ) , R o s e C a n n ( Th e a t r e ) , S i m o n G e n n a r d ( Vi s u a l A r t s ) , E l i s e M u n d e n ( Fa s h i o n ) , M i c h a e l G r a h a m ( Te l e v i s i o n ) I l lu s t r at i o n s : P h o e b e M o r r i s general contributors: B r o n t Í A m m u n d s e n , R owa n C a rt e r, J a r r e d C h r i s t i s o n , S o n ya C l a r k , L u k e C o d y , To b y C o o p e r , D o m i n i c C o w e l l - S m i t h , D e c l a n D o h e rt y - R a m s ay, M a d e l e i n e F o re m a n , G o u , Du n c a n H o pe , E v e K e n n e d y, M o l ly M c C a rt h y, Jo rd a n M c C lu s k ey, H u g o M c K i n n o n , Eleanor Merton, Gus Mitchell, Jamie Neikrie, Sam Northcott, Vi n i O l s e n - R e e d e r , N i c k O ’ M a l l e y , A l i c e P e a c o c k , N i c k P i t c h e r, N i n a Pow l e s , C h a r l i e P r o u t, O l l i e R i t c h i e , C a r l o S a l i z z o , W i l b u r To w n s e n d , J u l i a We l l s

contributor of the week Heneeeeeeeery Cooke Advertising Manager Tim Wilson sales@vuwsa.org.nz (04) 463 6982

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