Hello, welcome.
Here you’ll find blog posts from the Music 101 crew: Me, Kirsten Johnstone, Sam Wicks, and Nick Atkinson, who also hosts the Music Mix.
We’ll be writing about our experiences behind the scenes, hunting out music that moves us, our adventures with artists, as well as giving you a heads-up on shows and releases we’re excited about.
Right now, though, I’m bummed out by the death of Lou Reed.
As a teenager, The Velvet Underground, (the group he formed and fronted in the mid-60s), blew the gates off my musical world.
Lou Reed Photo: Danny Norton/Flickr
Up until that point, my knowledge of the history of music went something along the lines of classical, Elvis, the early Beatles, Mum’s 60s songs in which everyone’s boyfriend dies in a motorcycle accident, some hippy stuff, Prince/ Madonna/ Michael Jackson, hip hop, Nirvana.
The Velvet Underground sent me back to school, and shone a light on a vast, scrambled web of musical scenes and sounds, stretching across space, across time, and across altered psychological states.
In my best Nico impersonation, I picked up a guitar, and pushed my voice as low as it would go. I opened my ears to lo fi and experimental recordings, started listening to student radio, visiting record stores, reading liner notes, and through the dirge and jangle of the VU, Dunedin became a much more interesting place.
As did music. It’s incredible the sounds that trickle in when you open your ears to them.
There’ll be much more on the life of Lou Reed this Saturday afternoon on Music 101.
Inspired by Damian Alexander and Marcus Powell of Blacklistt (formerly Blindspott, but that’s another long, litigious story) telling us that their fans are getting the new band name in ink, we’ve started a photo gallery dedicated to band tattoos. Email us if you’ve given over your flesh for your favourite band and we’ll add it to the gallery.
This week I’m looking forward to the release of Orchestra of Spheres’ new album Vibration Animal Sex Brain Music.
I’m also listening to Wed 21, the new album from Argentinian sketch comic Juana Molina, which is currently streaming at NPR, as well as You Are A Traveller by AJ Sharma, who ran Sanctuary, a fantastic record and ephemera shop in Dunedin in the 90s.
When I find alone-time, I’m also learning the drum part to Thriller, for a revolving Halloween band at a friend’s party this weekend. As a very rusty musical dabbler, as a lot of music journalists probably are, the trick is to find inspiration rather than white hot horror in guys like this: