Spirit - The Family That Plays Together (USA 1968)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

For me there are four bands that stand as the peak of 60s popular music, not including the Beatles, who pretty much define the era, although not all of these four were all that popular at the time. The Mothers Of Invention, Buffalo Springfield, The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and Spirit.

I am not sure how I became aware of Spirit back in the late 80s or there about, but Edsel records had re issued this LP and it somehow found its way into my collection. It soon became a favourite with its wonderful mix of jazzy/psychedelic rock, being a very accomplished set without any weak tracks . Although the sound is firmly rooted in the late 60s, it still sounds good today and for me back then it came across as the quintessential 60s album. The album kicks of with the single "I Got A Line On You", an upbeat rocker which had moderate success and helped the albums sales at the time and highlights Randy California's excellent guitar sound. "It Shell Be" is a more mellower number propelled along with a good base line and interspersed with brass and wind to fill it out. A much more jazzy feel with pleasant vocals. "Poor Richard" is a much more Psychedelic sounding bass fuelled  number before segueing into the more ballad like "Silky Sam" with its strings and subtle guitar, although the song changed tempo before getting a bit more offbeat briefly in the middle. "Drunkard" starts of with melancholic strings and vocals before going psychedelic to fade. "Darlin' If" has a really cool, and again melancholic sounding  vocal. Another song that had differing tempos with some lovely subtle guitaring in the quieter parts. 'It's All The Same" is more up-tempo and slightly funky and I really dig the bass playing and the song is topped if with a great guitar break and drum solo. "Jewish" is the most radical track here with its Indian sounding drum intro with what I assume to be Jewish lyrics before it goes psychedelic with the guitars. "Dream Within a Dream" continues on with the top quality of the song writing with a great vocal and excellent guitar support and with the ever present piano supporting to good effect. "She Smiles" is a great pop song and one of the strongest here with great piano support also. "Aren't You Glad" finishes the album as strongly as it began with this mid tempo number, with Randy pumping out some nice licks. My main gripe with this excellent album is the production is a little muddy and it can be difficult to separate out the instrumentation for closer inspection and it doesn't do justice to Jay Ferguson's great voice. There aren't really any stand out, blow your mind classic,s on this album, just a consistent bunch of very strong songs which make it a classic album as a whole and it does have a bit of a concept feel to it, especially the way the songs segue into each other. A Roddus rating of 5/5 though.

Mi-Sex - Space Race (New Zealand 1980)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review

This is it, the first album I ever owned, the start of my large collection and my obsession with music.

My Mother brought a second hand Thorn integrated stereo back in late 79' or early 80'. One of those wooden cabinet things with record storage below the turntable and separate speakers. Not exactly top end but much better than the square box thing with the fold down turntable and integrated speakers that I had in my bedroom later. The Thorn wasn't too bad a system and was bloody loud, much to the annoyance to the neighbours. Mi-Sex were a local band but were based in Australia and were having success at the time with a couple of songs on fairly heavy rotation on one of the few radio stations we had back then. Now that we had a stereo, Mum, it seems, was switched on enough to what I was digging in the radio to get me this for Christmas that year along with a copy of Split Enz's "True Colours" album. The beginnings of  an obsession.

Space Race was the second album by Mi-Sex and the big hit from this new wave/synthpop and slightly arty music was "People" and for me the highlight is the slower "It Only Hurts When I'm Laughing" with it's great guitar break. "Ice Cold Dead " and "Burning up" are also stand out tracks on an album without any weak songs. Still enjoy this after all these years and it has stood the test of time well and I should see if I can still gert a copy on CD. Rating 4.5/5

Nirvana - Live at Paramount 1991 (USA 2011)

An uncle Roddus video review

I never got to see my favourite band of the time live in concert and hadn't been following recent concert releases from them. I had all their albums except the live 'From the Muddy Banks of the Wishka" and also haven't listened to any of  their music for sometime. So when I came across this live concert from 1991, I was keen to check it out, especially after getting a Pearl jam DVD for Xmas with mention of Nirvana.. Filmed in a moderate size venue which appears packed to the gunnells and I suspect a crowd of the size that Kurt Cobain would have liked to have kept playing to, not long after the release of Nevermind, the 60 odd minute adrenalin fuelled set is culled from the first two albums and some early tracks that also turned up on the Insecticide album. One surprise was the Song "Rape Me" which was included on In Utero, so I wonder how many other In Utero songs were already written at this early stage. Three musicians on a pretty bare stage with only a white screen for a backdrop, which changes colour occasionally, and a couple of lame dancers on the sides, makes for a very pure and authentic Rock N' Roll experience. The music is awesome, the sound brilliant and the quality of the film surprisingly good. Kurt spends most of the time with his eyes closed, his hair over his face, shredding his voice, and his fingers on his guitar and appears totally absorbed in the music. He says very little to the audience, leaving Krist to banter to the crowd, and spends several periods lying on the stage in various foetal positions bludgeoning us with his guitar solos. Dave's frenetic drumming is also great to watch. The style of the filming is also very good and I really liked the way the cameras got on stage with the guys and filmed at all sorts of different angles and the way they panned and you could see a camera man filming before they cut to his shot. " Aneurysm" is my favourite Nirvana song and possibly the greatest piece of Grunge recorded and this live version gives me goose bumps and reminds me how much I love it. I haven't seen any of the other Nirvana live DVDs from Reading in 92' and others, but they would be hard pressed to be as good as this one. Highly recommended and gets a Roddus rating of 5/5

Cromwell - 26 December 2011 - 2 January 2012

Uncle Roddus Holiday Adventures.

This year, for the holiday period, Mrs. Roddus and I got to spend several days down in Cromwell with her family and we got to play tourists for a change. There is plenty to see and do down there and the week passed very quickly.
Heading off early on Boxing day, we took the inland scenic route from home with our first rest stop at Geraldine before heading on to Fairlie, where we had an early picnic lunch. Another short rest stop at Tekapo for ice cream then onto Lake Pukakai where we stopped to admire Aoraki on a wonderfully fine day. The next stop was the Salmon Farm at Wairepo, where we enjoyed feeding the salmon and purchased a nice large slab of salmon to take with us to Cromwell. Our last stop before our destination was Omarama, where there is a fabulous antique and curio store with lots of interesting old books, one of Mrs. Roddus's favorite shops and I managed to find an interesting book for myself. We arrived at Cromwell in the mid afternoon to very hot temperatures and soon after unpacking the car at the Mother-In-laws, spending some time catching up with her, it was off the the Brother-In-Laws for a nice dip in his pool.
Our first excursion out while on holiday was to take a drive to see Alexander, which gave me the opportunity to see the Clyde Dam, after which we went for a short womble round the Beautiful and historic gold mining town of Clyde. One icream later we were back on the road to Alexander, where the Rail Trail Mountain bike trail begins. Alexander is a lovely town, but was a little disappointing after Clyde and apart from looking at a few shops(most of which were still closed for the holidays) a big book fair and a coffee, we didn't stay too long. Then back to Cromwell to hide in the swimming pool as the temperature at Alex was 34C.
The following day was a lazy day, reading and relaxing and swimming and going for coffee, but later in the day when things cooled off I went for a walk up the side of the hill beside lake Dunstan, overlooking Cromwell, to enjoy the rock formations and the views over the lake and township.
Day Four, I was gonna go tramping. My intention was to drive too Queenstown and Climb Ben Lomond, behind Queenstown. I had had another intention to do a walk up Wye Creek, but that was going to take too long to do in one day and I had no gear for overnight tramping. After getting to Queenstown but not finding the start of the track where it said in my tramping book, I finally located the start but then saw that the walking time up and back wasn't going to allow me to get back to Cromwell in time to pick up Mrs. Roddus and her Mum, as we were going out for dinner and a movie in Arrowtown. Also I decided it was going to be much too hot to climb 1300M that day. When I got back to Cromwell, I decided to fill in the rest of the afternoon with a short walk around the old gold mining sluicing at Bannockburn, and what an interesting little trip that was.
Day 5, I took Mrs Roddus for a drive into have a look at Skippers canyon. A spectacular place and a very hair raising road into this amazing old gold mining site. Took quite a while to drive in with plenty of stops for photos and then a short walk and a picnic before heading out again. I won't say too much about it here but let some of my photos show a bit of what it was like. After leaving Skippers Road, we decided to pop up the the Cardrona Ski field to enjoy the views, probably the best access road to any ski field in NZ.
New Years Eve and Mrs Roddus was helping her mother unpack her house after moving down to Cromwell only a couple of months before, to escape the continuing earthquakes Christchurch is still having(apparently 9427 shakes since the big on of Sept 4 2010). Uncle Roddus decided to fill in the morning by visiting the old gold mining site on the Kawarau River, a spot I have driven past many times over the years but never had the opportunity to stop. For a cheap $20 I got to do a self guided tour around the old working and a bit of gold panning at the end. Filled in the morning nicely. The afternoon was spent enjoying the old building and a coffee in old Cromwell town with Mrs. Roddus before heading out for a Thai Meal at a local restaurant, where I ordered a medium hot pork chili meal that nearly took my head off and had me sweating like a triathlete. I would hate to try one of their hot meals. The last few hours of the year were spent with the rest of the In-Laws playing Cranium before retiring soon after midnight as we were going to head off early and go to Dunedin.
New Years Day we were off early as we wanted to get to Dunedin early enought to book a ride on the afternoons Taieri Gorge Rail trip. Aftere the loveley scenic drive through the wonderful rocky landscape on the otherside of Alexander, We stopped at the lovely town of Lawrence, where we were suppose to have breakfast, but the cafe that had been reccommended was closed down, so after a cuppa and a look at some of the very cool buildings, we continued on to Dunedin, where we managed to get tickets for that afternoons train trip. January 2nd was time to go home.
Any how, enough of my dribble, please enjoy some photos from our travels that will give a much better insght into what we saw.

Uncle Roddus at Lake Pukaki on Boxing day, with Aoraki in the distance.

Salmon feeding frenzy as we throw in the pallets they gave us to feed them.

Uncle Roddus by the Clyde Dam which was completed in the late 80s or early 90s and helps form Lake Dunstan.

Main Street in the historic and picturesque town of Clyde, just below the dam.

The Clyde Dam end of Lake Dunstan.

This very cool clock is built on the side of the hill above Alexander.

The very cool old bridge over the Clutha River in Alexander.

This shot was taken on my small walk on the hills above Cromwell. The ground is very very dry, almost desert like up here and the small plants are thyme, so there was a nice strong oder up there. Looking at this landscape I felt like I was in some western movie and expected to see some desperado's hiding amongst the rocks.

A great shot of The Cromwell township. The curving waterway is the Kawarau River where it meets the Clutha. Before the Dam, this junction use to be a deep gorge with Old Cromwell town built on land now under water, near the original rivers edge. I remember seeing the old Cromwell bridge, which is now 10m under water, right in front of me here,  when they were starting to fill the lake back in 91'.

More cool rock formations.

I could tell people I was on Mars(I think the blue sky might give it away).

The Bannockburn sluicing. The landscape here was drastically altered by washing away the soils in the search for gold. This area and others we explored were the scenes of the great Otago Gold Rush of the early 1860s. Another landscape that made me think of Western movies.

More of the Bannockburn gold sluicing.

This was a man made water race.

he remnants o Stewart Town, above the Bannockburn Sluicing.

Quite incredible the damage they did with giant water blasters and this was before the days of electric pumps.

Watch out for Orcs.

Looking back up the sluiced valley from the photo above.

A shot of the vast area sluiced.

CBD, Arrowtown.

A town of hardened criminals.

The warning sign for Skippers Road.

The area behind Queenstown, from near Skippers Road.

The Drive into Skippers.

Spectacular rock formations and hills

More Hills and rocks from Skippers Road.

great shot of the Shotover River from Skippers Road.

Down in the Shotover River Bed, note the road cut into the cliffs.

Rockface.

Shotover River.

This is the bridge from where loony people bungy on the Shotover.

The big scare opposite is where the old timers sluiced for gold on the Shotover River back in the 1860s.

Skippers Bridge, which appears to be another place where loonys jump off.

A wonderful camping spot, to which we will be returning to spend some more time one day.

The old Aurum Station House which had been restored as an historic place.

The restored schoolhouse.

Another lovely shot of the Shotover River. We didn't see the Shotover Jet operating.

But we did see these guys on the way back out. A must do next time.

I think this is called Castle rock, although from other angles it could be called Penis Rock. That is Skippers Road below it.

The views from Cardrona.

This is the entrance to the old gold fields on the Kawarau river.

A nice shot of the Kawarau looking towards Cromwell.

This is Chinatown in the gold fields, these huts were re-created for a movie back in the early 90s of which I can't remember the title, but the lady at reception said it was pretty boring. I believe that this particular area was the site if the first gold finding in Otago and was mined at different levels and times upto the 1920s.

More China town.

Another shot of the Kawarau River looking towards Queenstown.

One of the water Cannons used for sluicing.

Battery used for crushing rock to extract gold.

A shot of old Cromwell, these buildings were relocated and restored when to lower township was flooded by the Dam.

Old Cromwell.

Dunedin Railway Station and the Tairei Gorge Train.

This Photo and the rest that follow were taken from the train on the upper reaches of the Tairei River Gorge before reaching Pukerangi from where the train heads back to Dunedin. The land above this beautiful gorge is quite flat, very dry looking with lots of rock outcrops, but you wouldn't know it when in the Gorge, it looks so different.