We Don’t Look For Trouble, But If It Comes We Don’t Run…

Hello from jolty Lyttelton. On my first night here, I watched that brilliant BBC film Threads. I sort of wished I hadn’t because it dawned on me that post-earthquake Lyttelton is a bit Threads-like. Post apocalyptic. The days are as clear as glass, and at night there is the odd aftershock just to politely remind you that you are alive. The light is different in the South Island. It’s clearer, more vivid. There are piles of rubble in the township. I just went for a stroll before and saw an old brick building being demolished. Not an uncommon sight here. The men drive battered and dungy old Trans Ams and Holden Kingswoods. The coffee is really good. I feel like I’ve been asleep for the past five years.

While here, I’ve hosted Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadóttir (we went to Diamond Harbour, ate baked goods and I got sun poisoned), been to her show in Christchurch, hosted two Ocker sound artist ladies, went to their show, went to Akaroa, been record shopping, been roaming around and taking photographs, and looking after and hanging out with Argenta, the most gorgeous Ocicat.

KD and Miss Argenta

I have also drunk a staggering amount of wine. I am housesitting for a wine writer, and she kindly left me well-stocked. Unless it’s Cognac at breakfast, I would usually find it churlish to imbibe before, say, elevenses: But when I woke up this morning, I found that Lyttelton was out of water. I instantly felt pangs of guilt. Last night I had a big, deep bath with one of those fizzy bath bombs that fill the bath with real rosebuds. I thought I had drained Lyttelton of its water supply. Helpful local Peter Wright put my mind at ease when he emailed me to say that a water pipe had burst somewhere. Phew.

Just now, two university students knocked on the door and asked if they could take photos of me because they’re taking photos of Lyttelton residents for a photography assignment which documents the resilience of the Lyttelton community. I protested that I’m not a Lyttelton resident and that I’m not photogenic anyway. It’s impossible to take a nice photograph of me. They insisted and so I let them, but I felt like a phony. I’ve just experienced a 4.9. I haven’t lived through what the locals have.

The people here are resilient, and there is a staunch community spirit. I’ve made some new friends, who have been helpful and welcoming to this yokel from Wellington. Before Hildur’s show, Bruce Russell, the Kaumatua of New Zealand experimental music showed up at my door and said, “I’m Bruce, I’ve come to give you a lift to the show.”

As we were driving to Christchurch, he randomly pointed out the window and said, “That’s Roy Montgomery’s house over there.” It took all my will to restrain myself from asking if we could pop in for a cup of tea. Montgomery is only my favourite recording artist, you know.

Went record shopping, which has been good. I did have a painful, horrendous experience at Penny Lane records, though. Out of all the bloody records they could have picked to put on the music box, they put on this dreadful Pink Floyd LIVE album. It’s as if record store workers have a default taste in rubbish. I’d hate to work in a record store: I love music too much. Don’t ask me why books are different, they just are.

I mean, all that amazing music at their fingertips and they go for the dullest thing ever. And this live Pink Floyd album really .shows the group at their bloated worst. I mean, I love so many Pink Floyd albums like, Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, A Saucerful of Secrets, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. Heck, I even like parts of Dark Side of the bloody Moon. But this was awful beyond belief. Pussy versions of ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ with trilly, warbly black ladies singing the parts that the schoolkids sang in the original version.

I thought it couldn’t get worse, but then that song ‘Learning to Fly’ came on, and I thought, “Right that’s it. I can’t take this.” I thought, “Now I know why punk rock happened.” I think it has to be one of the worst songs ever written. I moaned to Nick (not Bollinger) and he agreed, saying the guitar “sounds like porridge.”

I had to get out of there. I was ready to buy my pile of records, but Nick was still mucking about in the Library Music section. I could not believe it, when I jumped on the bus back to Lyttelton, and the bloody bus driver was playing the same album. In it’s entirety. What a jerk. Since when have bus drivers been allowed to pick their own music and play entire albums? Let alone boring Pink Floyd live ones. Whatever happened to the soothing, dulcet tones of daytime AOR radio tunes like ‘Baker Street’ and ‘Live it Up’?

And ‘Learning to Fly’ came on again, and I thought I was surely in some kind of hell. What are the odds of being subjected to one of the worst songs of all time, twice in the space of an hour?

It was only when I hopped off the bus that I realised that Tom Petty also has a horrible song called ‘Learning to Fly’. Which song is worse? It was that song that made me think for years that I hated Tom Petty, you know. That was before I discovered the brilliant Damn the Torpedoes, or this song, which is pure power-pop perfection. Neat clip, too:

RECORDS BOUGHT:

- Hard – GANG OF FOUR (1983)
- Kaleidoscope – SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES (1980)
- The Gospel According to Themeninblack – THE STRANGLERS (1981)
- Signing off – UB40 (1980)
- Seventeen Seconds – THE CURE (1980)
- Equinoxe – JEAN MICHEL JARRE (1978)
- The Luxury Gap – HEAVEN 17 (1983)
- Dare – THE HUMAN LEAGUE (1981)

The track that I’ve been bingeing on is ‘Lunar Camel’ from Kaleidoscope. It’s terrific. Apparently it’s about the female orgasm. I also love ‘Paradise Place’ (Sioux’s anti-plastic surgery song. She used that song as evidence to successfully sue a newspaper for reporting she’d had ‘work done’). I have long been used to the version of ‘Paradise Place’ from the live record Nocturne, so it’s nice to hear this slighty more narcotic and slower studio version. I’m also reading an oral history type biography of Siouxsie and the Banshees which is fascinating. The only thing about it that bothers me is that there is a big leap between them “not knowing how to play our instruments” to being really proficient. I don’t quite undertstand the transition and would have liked more insight. I’d prefer more of that than those boring long-winded bits about how someone came to join the group.

Righto, must ram on. I’m interviewing that fruity filmmaker John Waters tomorrow morning, so I have to do my swot. Thankfully the water is back on, so I can make a cup of tea instead of dipping into the winebox.