Neil Young - Psychedelic Pill (USA 2012)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review.

Neil has been a busy boy this year with this being his second release with Crazy Horse, after the earlier "Americana " set. This double CD set I picked up on my recent expedition to Auckland, seeing as it was only 20 bucks for a double set and it was high on my purchase list .

This set sounds like classic young and Crazyhorse, all the usual ingredients are present and any one familiar with Neil's previous work with the horse will feel right at home. The set opens with the mammoth 27 minute "Driftin' Back", one of three extended jams, and jams they are. At that length, it is difficult to maintain interest through out and the middle section of the song kinda stalls and sounds a bit insipid, before some classic Young/Horse guitar noodlings improves things somewhat.  "Ramada Inn" is the second of the extended tracks but far shorter at a more modest 17 minutes and is a better song than the opener. The final extended track is the superior "Walk Like a Giant" and is on par with Young's last great marathon track " Ordinary People" from the Chrome Dreams II album. The rest of the album is chock full of classic Crazyhorse and although none of it has really grabbed hold of me yet, I get a strong feeling that most of this album will grow in stature as familiarity takes hold. Rating 4/5.

Shearwater - Animal Life (USA 2012)

An Uncle Roddus Album Review.

Considering the range of music I listen to and the weirdness of some of my favourite artists, you still can't beat a top quality, well constructed album of straight ahead pop/rock. Since getting back into Uncut Magazine earlier this year, I have purchased some really great new albums and this one is very near the best of the lot(along with The Alabama Shakes debut album). Tinged with electronics and most numbers purring along at a steady moderate tempo are 11 impressive tracks of blissful indie pop that the Americans are so good at nowadays.  Jonathan Meiburg's vocals are very impressive and the best song here is the steamrolling " Immaculate" which is up there with Pearl Jam's "Rear View Mirror" as far as great songs go.I Haven't given this album as much attention as it deserves but I can safely award it a rating of 5/5.

Coldplay - 10th November 2012 Auckland, New Zealand

It's been a whirlwind weekend as Mrs. Roddus and myself got flown up to Auckland to attend Coldplay's only New Zealand concert on their "MYLO XYLOTO" world tour.

 Mrs. Roddus was dead keen to go see them play when she found about this concert several months ago, and although I have enjoyed Coldplay over they years and have their first three albums on CD, I had lost interest in them and wouldn't have bothered if Mrs. Roddus wasn't so excited about seeing them live.

 This was my first trip to Auckland itself, except several times through the airport onto more far flung destinations, and fortunately this whole expedition, concert included, was organised by my Electrical wholesalers, which meant accommodation and transportation was all arranged as well as corporate VIP passes to the concert itself. This meant that we had about 5 hours after arriving at our hotel to see a bit of Auckland before we were whisked off to Mt Smart Stadium for the gig. Our short time was spent on a short stroll up Queen St for Mrs. Roddus to check out  some shops and where I could pop into JB HIFI, as we had been told it was the biggest CD shop and Auckland and I was hoping to find some John Zorn CDs there(No chance, but did get some Sun Ra though). We jumped on the ferry and shot over to Devonport for lunch and a short ride on a horse drawn buggy before coming back across to prepare for the concert.  

Here are a few shots of central Auckland I took.

A hotel on the wharf 

Heading to catch the ferry.

On the ferry heading away from the terminal.

Hilton on Wharf.

A strange building on wharf.

A short ride round Devonport

The horse hogging the photo.

Bloody hell, it's nearly Xmas already.

Skytower near our hotel, next time I might even get to go up it.

Our nice suite at the Heritage.

We were picked up from our hotel by bus about 5:30PM and whizzed along the motorways to Mt Smart Stadium, getting to our box about 6:30 where we were presented with out VIP concert package of a tour book of art work and song lyrics in a cool bag and both a vinyl and CD copy of the New Coldplay Album "Mylo Xyloto" packaged in the book, very cool.We settled in with drinks and watched the crowd pour in while the first support band started their set very soon after.The stage set up and speaker systems were very impressive and no doubt state of the art for a stadium band of this calibre but as is usual for rock concerts the sound was very very loud. I don't mind loud but at this volume it makes it difficult to separate out the sounds of individual instruments and hear clearly what the singers are singing or saying, and for groups like both support groups, The female fronted The Pierces, from the USA and The Temper Trap from Australia, it makes it a bit more difficult to apprise their music when you are unfamiliar with it as I am. Neither group impressed me enough to want to explore their music any further but did give me time to acclimatise my ears ready for Coldplay. 

Coldplay came on at 9PM  and instantly dazzled  the 47000 strong crowd with one of the best light shows I have seen, especially with the LED light arm bands that we all wore lighting up an impressive site. With fire works and balloons and confetti snow storms and inflatable blobs rounding out the gimmicks  they certainly impressed and entertained me from that angle. The music, although almost overpoweringly loud was still mostly recognisable and the band played their hearts out and put on a magnificent show and had the crowd all worked up like the professionals they are. One part of the show, near the end, the group relocated to a small stage towards the back of the stadium quite near us and played a number from there. A good idea.

After playing most of our favourite songs and some good stuff from the latest album, which I am quite impressed with, they finished the show the  same way they started with a nice set of fireworks from behind the stage. It all went off very well with the crowd responding  the weather holding and  the music  booming. Overall a worthwhile experience and Mrs. Roddus loved it, and that's the main thing. I managed to bring my Panasonic Lumix camera with me and thought I'd try and video some short segments of the set to see what that looked like and the results were surprisingly better than expected, so enjoy three clips below of the opening song, the small stage song and the final song with fireworks after these photos.

The Pierces

The Pierces again.

The crowd building.

An Impressive setup.

Add caption

The Temper trap.

A shot of the crowd just before Coldplay came on.

 

The Pyramid - 5th November 2012

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary: Tramp No 126

The Pyramid - 5th November 2012

After another good dump of snow on the Torlesse Range on the previous day, expectations were high that we would be encountering some of the white stuff up on The Pyramid and so 11 of us set off from the Hawdon Shelter loaded with crampons and ice axes as we couldn't quite see the conditions of the tops due to the patchy cloud cover, although indications suggested we probably wouldn't need them.

After a chilly crossing of the Hawdon river and Sudden Stream, we donned our boots and melted into the woods looking for the rough track that would take us up the nearest spur to the tops. The track is unmarked and patchy in places but was relatively easy to follow and we made good time to the bushline where we stopped for lunch in partial sun and a cold brisk breeze. Fortunately the cloud had lifted by this time, most of the fresh snow had melted and the crampons and ice axes never left our packs as we followed the ridgeline northwards, enjoying the great views up Sudden Valley and across the Hawdon etc. After hitting The Pyramid at point 1608, we continued along past point 1565, looking for the scree to take us down to Sudden Valley. Some of us popped up to what I believe may have been point 1594 where we encountered a lone Kea perched on a rock. After afternoon tea, we bounded down a very good scree slope where we undid hours of hard slog in a matter of minutes in an exhilarating downward plunge. The rest of the day was spent negotiating our way down Sudden Valley, which was more challenging than this scribe remembered from his last visit, although comment was made that the water level was quite higher than normal due to the recent rains and snowmelt. We arrived back at the cars by around 6PM.

Some random photos from the trip.

VA - Time to Go The Southern Psychedelic Moment 1981-86 (New Zealand 2012)

Uncle Roddus Album Of The Day

I spotted this online recently and thought I had best check it out as I knew most of the groups on it and have enjoyed plenty of classic Flying Nun music over the years, although I don't have as much of it in my collection as I should. Many of the best Nun bands are represented on this double set but most of the songs are  unfamiliar to me, not being their most well known songs that I know from listening to student radio in my younger days. That makes this less appealing than some of the other Flying Nun Compilations which are great Kiwi music nostalgia trips and at times the kiwi accent doesn't sit so well for me in the vocal department, This particular scene through up some great musicians and song writers but not to too many great singers.

That complaint aside, it is great to hear another track from the incredibly rare Playthings again and I so wish some one would get it together to re issue the small amount of music they recorded on CD, I just dig their lo-fi post punk pop. The legendary Gordons are always a highlight on Nun comps, although I already have their first brilliant album of furious anarchic pre-grunge and again wish someone would re-issue their second and last album. The rest of this set is run of the mill Flying Nun which is good, but for me, not essential. Rating 3/5. 

Various Artists - Appetizers (USA 1973)

Uncle Roddus Album Of The Day

DISC ONE:

1. Little Feat - Dixie Chicken

2. Arlo Guthrie - Lovesick Blues

3. Bert Jansch - The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face

4. Linda Lewis - Rock-a-Doodle-Doo

5. Paul Butterfield - Baby Please Don't Go

6. Seals and Crofts - Jessica

7. Van Morrison - Warm Love

8. The Faces - Borstal Boys

9. Todd Rundgren - Is It My Name

10. Fanny - All Mine

11. Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies

12. John Cale - Paris 1919

13. Procol Harum - Toujours L'Amour

DISC TWO:

1. Incredible String Band - Second Fiddle

2. Steeleye Span - Misty Moisty Morning

3. The Doobie Brothers - Dark Eyed Cajun Woman

4. Wet Willie - Airport

5. T.Rex - Born To Boogie

6. Deep Purple - I'm Alone

7. Lorraine Ellison - Many Rivers To Cross

8. Martin Mull - Licks Off Of Records

9. William Truckaway and Magic - Roller Derby Starr

10. Flo And Eddie - Another Pop Star's Life

11. Seatrain - Bloodshot Eyes

12. The Beach Boys - Susie Cincinnati

13. Foghat - What A Shame.

This is one of the early record label samplers that started appearing in the late sixties, one of the first being the excellent "Rock Machine Turns You On". Plenty of familiar names on this double set but the songs are not all so familiar. A reasonable quality set of early 70s pop/rock and a somewhat eclectic mix to boot makes for some interesting listening but not an essential collection. A couple of real clangers spoil the show a bit with one of those horrible corny 70s pop songs from Linda Lewis and a piece of rubbish from the deplorable Alice Cooper. There are some good rockers from the likes of the Faces and Todd Rundgren of which I wasn't familiar and more offbeat stuff like the reggae tinged instrumental from the " Incredible String Band" and a good comedy song from Martin Mull, who ever he was. A Roddus rating of 3/5 for this lot.

Skream - Skream (UK 2006)

Uncle Roddus Album Of The Day

"Tortured Soul"
"Midnight Request Line"
"Blue Eyez"
"Auto-Dub"
"Check It" (featuring Warrior Queen)
"Stagger"
"Dutch Flowerz"
"Rutten"
"Tapped" (featuring JME)
"Kut-Off"
"Summer Dreams"
"Colourful"
"Emotionally Mute"

I can't remember how I found this album but it is an early example of a slow tempo electronic music called dubstep. I have several compilations of dubstep that I brought after hearing this but I still find this the most enjoyable example of the genre that I have heard. Although I don't really listen to much modern electronica, it is refreshing to find the occasional example that I enjoy listening to. This particular example has plenty of deep groovers with some nice jazzy sax on some trax, especially the extended acid groove of "Summer Grooves". "Blur Eyes" is another standout track amongst a pretty good set. Overall Rating 4/5.

Grand Funk Railroad - Born to Die (USA 1976)

Uncle Roddus album of the day.

Time to do some quick reviews of stuff hiding in the deep dark depths of the Uncle Roddus hard drive. I have enjoyed some of Grand Funk Railroad's other albums and this one from well into their career  being something like their 12th album, is an average slab of mid 70s AOR blues based pop/rock. They were sounding pretty commercial by this stage, although not as blatant as say The Eagles or Fleetwood Mac, but I quite enjoy this one inspite of it being more tame than the psych of their earliest releases. Plenty of good melodies and good tunes but not something I'm gonna rush out and buy next week but deserves a Roddus rating of 3/5.

Paske Hut - 6-7th October 2012

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary: Tramp No.125

Paske Hut - 6-7th October 2012

Uncle Roddus doesn't get out in the mountains too much in the winter, usually due to work and also because the greater incidences of foul weather either putting me off or trips getting abandoned altogether. Spring is the time I usually get back into my tramping and I can get a bit of a taste of the winter trips with there still usually being plenty of snow around on the tops. This latest trip gave me a real taste of winter tramping and although I was enthusiastic enough at the start, for a while I was beginning to regret coming. Read on for the tale of my latest Epic trip.

After reading the trip report of the clubs previous expedition to this remote destination, just before writing about this more recent one, it is now more clear to this scribe why Uncle Bernhard was asking me about how high was the ground clearance of my car. I told him it was just normal, but it is an all wheel drive, and so it was that after meeting at Amberly, three others piled into my Subaru to follow Uncle Bernhard in his relatively new four wheel drive as we headed for the wilds of the upper Clarence. 

The forecast was for showers and nor-westers with possible snow down to 500M possibly clearing late afternoon or evening, Sunday was to be fine. After a longish stop at Culverden for pies and coffee, we set off again looking longingly at the clear blue sky's above the ranges to the north and the dark gloomy clouds in the direction we were heading. Got over Jacks Pass on a clear road but with very light snow falling, which got heavier and heavier as we got closer to out destination. Uncle Bernhard stopped at the St James Cycleway to use the facilities as the snow was falling quite thickly and had a discussion with Jonathan where doubts were expressed as to whether we could actually get over Paske saddle or not or whether we could camp at the top end of the Clarence if we couldn't achieve the above. Our leader was getting cold feet, perhaps after his last experience on this trek and decided to head back to Fowler Hut for lunch and look at the option of heading into Lake Guyon instead. So we drove back to Fowler Hut, only to find it full of kids going Mountain Biking. Executive decision was then made to head back to Lake Tennyson and have a go at the Paske Saddle. At the Lake, while the snow was still falling, it wasn't heavy enough to be settling deeply and so we finally set off  around the lake, after crossing the Clarence outlet without losing any poles or getting overly wet, not long after midday
After skirting the Southern end of the lake in full wet weather regalia, we stopped to eat lunch in the shelter of the beech trees on the western shore. After scrambling around the lakes edge, round clumps of Matagari and scrub, we regrouped at the northern end of Lake Tennyson before the long and snowy trudge up the Clarence  the snow not letting up and getting thicker on the ground as we progressed. We arrived at the base of Paske Saddle some time just past 5PM, had a quick refuel and Jonathon check in to see if everyone was OK to keep going, as we had a lot of work yet to do. Fortunately it had stopped snowing by now and the sun tried to make an appearance before we started our ascent.
The going was pretty tough, with a steep ascent of snow covered scrub, but steady progress was made and we eventually cleared the scrub and got onto the soft new snow. About 100M from the top it was time to don crampons and this is where the continuing crampon adventures of Uncle Roddus continue. After the last two adventures of losing my crampons on a bum slide off the back of my pack and then finding a broken strap on the last trip, I thought I had sorted them out. Considerable time was spent first trying to get them strapped on on a steep windy slope with both freezing hands and frozen crampon straps, after two attempts, as one came off during testing, I finally got them secured. Others were having trouble also with the first time they had used them and being unfamiliar with the complex strapping systems. In due course we all got started, and duly followed Jonathan, Murray and Lovisa, who were well gone by now, up the very hard ice to the saddle. Dale was the first to the top, but with visibility getting difficult as the light was fading and the snow was causing  difficulty seeing a way off the top as there was a cornice along the saddle and we couldn't see the tracks of the others who had already dropped off the saddle. I started to head off to my right, as this looked like a possible route but the fresh snow became quite deep and here did the crampon problems start again. My crampon came apart where the two parts joined and as the snow was fresh and soft I thought I may be OK, I still had one crampon on my foot, but the new snow was very dry and powdery and did not give much support before my cramponless foot slid on the ice below. This made the descent a bit frustrating but I persevered with some bum sliding and foot sliding until we re grouped at the tussock line where we were able to do away with the crampons. I thought my crampon had broken, but it turned out that the soft deep snow I had tried to walk through and pressed up the metal strip and released the little lug that holds them together.
It was getting dark by this time and so headlights were extracted from packs and crampons stored away as we followed Jonathan and Lovisa's tracks in the snow down through the beech trees down to the river. We lost their tracks near the bottom, so followed the river downstream towards the hut with this scribe feeling very tired and somewhat grumpy and seriously considering the possibility of how he could get out tomorrow without going back over the way we came, he wasn't the only one. We caught up with the others crossing the river and soon were relieved to site the hut at about 9:30PM.
As promised, Sunday dawned stunningly fine and all was forgiven and forgotten of the previous days challenges as we enjoyed the spectacular views presented us by the setting and all the fresh new snow.
We left the hut at 8:45AM and with great visibility headed back up the valley and started the climb up to the Paske saddle. The new snow provided better support going up than it did going down and it was some way up before crampons were needed. After yesterday's mishaps I was meticulous of knocking the snow off the bottom of my crampons and one other of the party suffered a similar fate with his crampons as I has the previous day. The ascent to the  saddle was successful and breathtaking(in more ways than one) and was much easier when we finally hit the hard ice. After some quick photo shoots on the saddle it was off again back down to the Clarence. The descent started off well with very hard ice making for excellent cramponing but as we started to hit the softer stuff and falling through the top crust occasionally the same situation befell my crampons and made life somewhat more difficult when we hit some harder patches on the way down first with only one and one half crampon on then just half a crampon till finally both were off and much more caution was needed than from the others to get me to the bottom.
The Clarence was a little more breezy than the Paske and so most of us hunkered down behind rocks and banks to partake some lunch before we set off back to Lake Tennyson. Discussion was had between the two who had done this trip before as to the track that sidles above the western edge of the lake and as we neared the lake they started searching for the aforementioned track which was eventually found via a cairn up a small side creek. This was a well preserved track, allowing us a much faster time along the lake than the previous day and had this scribe wondering why we didn't use it then, but so go the peculiarities of  an Uncle Bernhard trip. We all safely arrived back at the vehicles around 5:30PM to no snow and an easy exit back to Hanmer, where Bernhard nearly earned himself a Loo-loo award by driving off without Stephen, as we headed off back to Christchurch, I'm sure Stephens wife smartly pointed out the error of his ways as Uncle Bernhard quickly pulled over to pick up a worried Stephen.

Are we Mad? Getting ready to go.

Setting off around the lake.

The snow falling as we hide in the trees for lunch.

The North end of Lake Tennyson.

Slowly making out way up the Clarence.

Almost at the start of our ascent.

Climbing up to Paske Saddle with the Clarence in the background.

Getting into the deeper snow.

Nearing Paske Saddle the weather started to break, still a bit breezy though.

The view from Paske Hut on a stunning Sunday morning.

Paske Hut.

looking the other way from Paske hut.

Uncle Roddus At Paske Hut.

The rest of these Photos document the rest of the trip back to Lake Tennyson and what a contrast to the previous day.