Back to the blog:
  Been getting really fucked off with Cocksucker Key of late...what an arrogant ignorant cunt...do people in this country really admire that sort of person? I can't wait to wake up one fine morning to turn on the news & find out that some civic-minded psycho has offed him. I will contribute to the defence fund. Anyway onto more pleasant things...
  It was hinted by Dass-san that I explore the vocal works of Brian Eno...did so...loved them...thank you sweetheart...especially "Another Green World" &"Before & After Science"...also heard again the much-loved "No Pussyfooting"...beautiful beautiful sounds.
  Today heard Laurel Halo 1st time...nice...but Holly Herndon wipes the floor with her sound design. The new Stimming CrackMag podcast is the nicest mix I have heard for a long time...possibly ever. Looking forward to the new Marcel Dettmann  album & seriously wish to get Holden's "Inheritors".
  Wish my son would keep in touch with me...only family I've got left...shall try to contact him again.
 

Back from the storm...

  Lately I've thought that the word "meditation" & the term "meditative states" are more than a little unhelpful : Walpole Rahula says that the original term used was the word "bhavana", meaning "mental cultivation".
  Just Sitting is what we do...& three of the positive things that may arise are calmness, openness & harmony. An awareness & an appreciation of these are what the Tibetans call shi-ne...experience of space...it is a development of calm abiding...samatha... & false experiences may be dispelled by observation of arising phenomena...the application of vipassanna...seeing through these arising forms to the ground of our being.
  Education is essential; it is  often overlooked  that one of the Buddha's Seven Factors of Enlightenment is called dharma-vicaya...conversations, studies, reading...finding out what the words mean...talking about the ideas...but most of all dwelling in silence...swimming in it.

  So, just sauntered through the 3rd series of  "Californication" watching all Hank's little chickenhawks come home to roost...dear, dear...great show though; obscenity for it's own sake always being a great  favourite of mine (see "Deadwood"). And just love the soundtrack...ain't Warren Zevon sooo pertinent.
  Am also over halfway through Mick Farren's "DNA Cowboys Trilogy"...after 30 yrs it still leads the rabid pack of Psychedelic fiction edging ahead of Moorcock right from his 1st books... check out "The Tale of Willie's Rats"...Farren's account of his band daze with the Deviants & the Pink Fairies...who also get a great PR job done on them in "Keep It Together" !! His finest though..the soon to be revisited "Song of Phaid the Gambler"...so cool...so fucking grubby.
  Watched "21 grams" last week...not a bad movie...but, certainly does not live up to it's own hype. Looking forward to next week's release of the "Adjustment Bureau"...PhilipKDick forever...
  Hmmm, music...just loved Rod Modell's new podcast...& the Richie Hawtin vs Plastikman one on XLR8R, I think...also dug Alexander Kowalski's Damage Records pre-Sonar set  & Robag Wruhme's great driving mix...haven't bought any lately...will be getting at the Wesseltoft-Schwarz Duo soon...& the new Biosphere album...which he made in Japan after Xmas as a protest against nuclear plants being sited so close to fault-lines...who knew eh??...Only those with braincells left....
  See that our PM Cocksucker Key has been touring India...suppose it's too much to wish that he will be Standing in Silence for the rest of election year.
  And talking of Rhian Sheehan...here's hoping that the future will allow him to find his own voice. A fine musician who seems, for some reason, to prefer other people's stylee...for us older dudes it has been a long journey through his various fetishes: from Four Tet to Shpongle (albeit without the humour or the weird) to Glass-type minimalism & now, it seems, to a fascination with the gorgeous sounds of our own immeasurably talented David Parsons...here's to Rhian meeting himself coming down the staircase one day & deciding to jump off. Not that our local kulturatti would neither know, nor give a fuck about it...that was abundantly obvious at the fawning reception his rather mundane concerts were given in the last year.
  What about the KarlMarx project's "AntiGravity" eh?...lowkey...a little spooky...love it.
                                         shantih shantih shantih...

  If there's still humans alive in 2 or 3 hundred years, I think Gary Snyder will be looked upon as the 20th century's greatest nature poet...first came across him in, of course, Kerouac's "Dharma Bums"...fuck did he ever influence my little life after that: the next summer holidays, still 16 years old, I scored a job in the local Forest Service...measuring trees for fuck's sake...walking for perhaps an hour through Gwavas State forest to a place where we would measure 100 trees, up & down & girthwise...then trudge off to the next plot...total immersion in nature...weekends would sometimes stay in one of the fire towers...even more fun...talk about "remote access".
  About the same time I saved up cash to buy US $s, sent an order to Mr. Ferlinghetti's City Light Books in San Francisco, & received a beerbox of Beat literature about 10 weeks later.."Pictures of the Gone World" a broadsheet of Kerouac's pome "Rimbaud", facsimile of Ginsberg's "Planet News"...all stunning...but, most importantly Gary Snyder's "Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems" a volume that has informed my poetical sensibility ever since.
  Now, after all these years, I'm still a great fan of the guy...lately scored a copy of the Gary Snyder Reader along with  the Snyder/Ginsberg Selected Letters... also found Snyder's "Passage through India" in my local Library ...& my admiration continues to surge. Tat tvam asi, dudes

  Have been watching the 2nd series of "Californication" : what a fucking hoot. It's great being able to watch a whole series over a few days...neat show, fine music, great acting...tush to die for...
  Just about to record the stems for a new track... should have it up on Soundcloud before tooo looong, y' know...it's been cool finding out how to sequence sounds from my Theramin...turns it into a right chirpy little bastard ! Really handy. Good for weird drones as well...no envelopes needed...hint, hint.
  Just into the last third of the trilogy of T. Jefferson Parker's Border Wars: went right off him for about 10 yrs, but his last 4 or 5 books I have liked a lot....check out "California Girl"...a paean to all the girls we fucked over in the 70s; nice stuff.
  Christchurch...Chernobyl by earthquake eh?
                                              Om Shantih, mein Herren und Damen.

Vlad the impaler...

  New ep just excellent....quite new sound, only a snatch of signature bass in the 2nd track (Korpi)...loved the Villalobos/Loderbauer rmx of Latoma...but worried about the review @ Boomkat...a few pure sine waves & they think you're hanging out in Delia Derbyshire's closet...as for the so-called "jazz influences", I think the guy just wanted you to know that he knows what they've been up to of late (ECM etc).
  Also blew a weekend bus fare into CBD on the new Burial ep...really, really liked the last track called "Stolen Dog".
  Found a "new" thriller writer that I'd had on hold for years...John Harvey...a trilogy of "Flesh & Blood", "Ash & Bone", "Darkness & Light"...cool writer, great stories, excellent characters.
  Got the washing out on the porch in the gorgeous Auckland breeze....
 

So, this is my place in space...hope it won't turn into a nasty collection of rants...JohnKey will just have to behave himself eh?...and start voting Labour. Just off to Boomkat to buy the new Vladislav Delay EP...and then a visit to the original ClubMed for a while...OM SHANTIH to that!