This Newsletter Is Two: “Sounds Good!” Celebrates Its 2nd Birthday
Friday is about music. Though it would appear this one is more about trumpet-blowing. Anyway, there's always a playlist at least!
When I wrote a blog about music for Stuff.co.nz, I did this thing where I would celebrate the milestones, call them out. Every one hundred posts, every birthday. Why not, right? It was a big achievement, Over 2000 posts, several years of work. If I didn’t celebrate it, or mention it at the least, then no one would know. This, I think, is one of the great tragedies of this content-rich era that threatens to topple us. So many blogs, and newsletters, and things. So much reading. So little time. And if the author or creator doesn’t remind the reader that they’ve been at it a while – and they really care to do it – then who will really know, and who might actually care?
That’s a depressing way to slide into saying that this newsletter is TWO! The Sophomore Slump. Second-Album Syndrome. Here we are, two years into an experiment that I started on a bit of a whim. I’d been blogging forever in various forms. I was all over social media as well. And I had my own website too.
I was a sucker for homework. And I still am.
And a good friend said “you should do one of those Substack newsletters, you goose!” Or something like that.
So I got to honking.
And now, I’ve honked out three a week for two years.
Last year I wrote this on the occasion of the first birthday.
It's not much. If you missed it then, you don’t really need to worry about catching up, but I share it again anyway. Because: why not, right?
I’ve really enjoyed a second year at the wheel. I’ve kept it all very much the same. Monday, I gas on about TV or movies, old and new. Wednesday, I share some of my creative writing, or write about books, and reading. And then on Fridays, it’s a music-related topic. And there’s a playlist or two. (Sometimes a few).
Subscribers come and go. Some pay. Some never do. And I keep writing. I like this arrangement. I am very grateful that anyone might read, but I am also running my own gig here – for myself. I turn up because it’s a good idea for me. I worked that out a long time ago. And I’m keeping at it. I probably will forever. In some way, shape, and/or form.
I still want to know from you if you’d prefer something else. A change up, a new style, a return to some old way, or any combination of these and other things.
But I’ll keep pushing out topics and essays and ideas and I’ll keep sharing old pieces that I’ve newly discovered – or finally feel ready to place in the world, or whatever.
Substack has been fun. And year two has been great.
Some days, I wake up early and I really am excited. Some nights I stay up late and I worry I will never find something to say. That hasn’t been the case, as yet. I do not think I’ve missed a day.
Maybe in the third year, I’ll stumble.
We’ll see.
Friday is usually about music. So I’ll share some things with you that I’m digging. That I’ve dug. And of course, our regular playlist too.
First up, I might actually be a Mariah Carey fan, and I don’t think I’ve ever really acknowledged this?!
Last week’s playlist was one of my favourites. And I closed it off with Vision of Love and it was a bit of a joke in a way, but it also wasn’t. I’ve legit always dug that song. So when I played it back and listened through to the playlist, that song really hit hard. I realised the first few Mariah albums are records I always loved. So many bangers. I even broke a drumstick this week playing along to Emotions. And no, that’s not an icky metaphor. Just the drum facts.
I cannot stop listening to the band Boy Harsher and this is okay because a) they’re great and b) tonight I’m going to see them live!
I got into the American electro-pop band when I heard their 2016 debut full-lengther. A gem. I forgot about them for a bit, as happens, and then got massively into their horror-film, The Runner. It’s a short film, written and directed by the band, with an accompanying score. Right up my alley, all of it. The band is very into film and filmic – in its music and aesthetic. They compare themselves to two of my favourite movies (Body Heat and The Lost Highway).
Well, anyway, tonight they’re playing Wellington. And I am pumped! And they are a great band to listen to when you’re walking, or working out, or driving, or when you’re at work, or writing. Basically a band for any time and all times. And Spotify’s sampler playlist (I usually don’t bother with these, I don’t know why) is maybe all you’ll ever need if you need convincing.
Dirty Spoons has a gig next week – we’re playing but we’re also the organisers, we’re promoting a show with other acts on the bill. We’re the opening act, actually.
This last year has been great for me for a bunch of reasons, I dug 2022 pretty hard all up. But one of my favourite things about it was seeing the band Dirty Spoons really progress. We’re a two-piece, so we have to be realistic, we can’t play for an hour, we can’t do a whole lot with our simple instrumentation, so we need to be creative. For this year’s Fringe Festival we are debuting a concept that I hope we can carry on with: We’ll book the gig, and organise it and we’ll jerk the curtain – we’ll be the opening act. We’ll always involve a poet or storyteller, something to do with words (maybe an actor performing a monologue) and ourselves, and then one other act – a singer/songwriter or a band. The headliner. For our first hit out, we’ve got the amazing performance poet (a national Slam champion) Tarns Hood. And the band Lawnmaster. The gig is at MOON next Sunday, Feb 26, and it’s $10 – tickets at the link above or on the door. I can’t wait! It’s going to be so much fun.
I made a couple of albums and they’re hiding in plain sight on Bandcamp.
Did I already tell you this? I honestly can’t remember. I know I have shared a track or two (usually to accompany the ‘print’ version of the story). In July last year, in one day, I made a spoken word album under the name, Second Storey Teller. I made the beats and wrote the stories and recorded them on my iPad. The writing was not all done in one day, but the song-shaping, recording and release was. And it was a rewarding project. The album has a real theme, a real attempt at pathos. And I think it’s a noble failure. And they’re the best kind.
A month later I did it all again, with The Second Second Storey Teller Story. Which is an improvement in a lot of ways, but it’s also probably a hot stinking mess. And I am okay with that. Anyway, there they are. They are a part of last year’s journey.
Here are 100 cover versions of songs I’d like to cover
I might have shared this playlist with you already, but I’m into it. It’s 100 songs that I would totally want to cover, and each version on offer here is a cover, not the original. I like the idea of covering covers, you take a song someone else has already covered, and you add your version to the file. This is part of the magic of the ongoing conversation within and around music.
I read a great book about Van Halen this week, and I listened to most of the catalogue as a result and this band was one of the all-time greatest rock bands and I miss them.
Van Halen Rising: How A Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal had sat on my Kindle for years. Finally, this week I decided it was time. I had started listening through the early VH albums again, and thought if I was going in, I was going all in. This is something I just go with now, these mild obsessions. I go all the way in on something for a bit. Anyway, I’ve always loved Van Halen, and I guess when Eddie died, I felt I needed to just put the band away for a while. Now I’m right back in, and I found some interesting stuff out, this book is just terrific. It only goes up to the 1984 album; so it charts the Roth years, it talks about the early roots, and takes you through the hard yards. The main thing I found out from listening to the music again was that Fair Warning is sometimes my favourite VH album. It has something many of the others does not: It’s greasy. It’s funky. It’s tight and loose. And it’s a wonderful studio snapshot of the debauchery and madness the band was loving.
Well, that might be enough for this Friday. “Sounds Good!” is two. And I have loved getting it to this stage. And I will hope it continues on to being three, and four, and whatever else.
I would love to know if you have suggestions. I’m not looking for congratulations. And I have Vol.104 of the regular weekly playlist for you.
Thanks so much for reading, for being here. And I hope you have a lovely weekend. Fill it with music. It makes it go slower, it makes it feel better.
What music is blowing your mind – old or new – this week?