A Million Pleading Faces

  LIVE REVIEW: OTISFEST. 14/04/24, San Fran, Wellington.      THE PRELUDE i walk into sanfran dead on four, and there’s already a crowd standing ready by the stage. cameramen scurry around stressing over technical details while various band members glue themselves to the bar, trying to find the balance between drunk enough to ignore the pressure and not drunk enough to keep yourself upright. they’ve got good reason to be stressed, Otisfest is one of the only concerts this year that actually matter.  tickets were completely sold out online, and there were still people trying to get in when the first band went on. i don’t know if it was my outfit or my notebook i was furiously scribbling in, but security kept sending these people to me to help them. i guess they thought i was staff and i had to point many panicked indie rock fans in the right direction.  people took to drinking early and hard. there was a genuine atmosphere of movement here, the idea of on...

  INTERVIEW: Bedroom Folk minimalist Mudgoose on Origins, Cassette Recording, the "Scene" and the lack of good Country.       i don’t know how much of an introduction the music of Mudgoose needs if you’ve been an avid reader of this site. his music is sweet, yet melancholy, lugubrious, yet beautiful. a true DIY songsmith, you get the feeling you can know him as a friend just by listening to his output; and that he’s singing to you, personally. If you're a fan of all the prerequisite good indie bands everyone’s supposed to like ( Sebadoh , Pavement , Elliot Smith , The Raincoats et al) he’s one to watch. i had the pleasure of speaking to mr Mudgoose the day before the release his latest effort, the full length Here Come The Planes EP, released on cassette and digital by ChainPunkBaddie (that’s quality whanganui workmanship, that is.) i’m told the tapes will find their way to high profile wellington record stores, so make it your duty to support the artist today. ...

  RECORD REVIEW : Pearly* , Post Key BCP (single) (2024) did you miss me yet?  i’ve had to cut back the last two weeks for personal reasons that had me travelling out of wellington, leading to me not having the time to write much of anything, really, and causing me to miss out on two of the gigs i was looking forward to the most (the Mudgoose eyegum wednesday and the not one, but two Feshh shows.) another gig i happened to miss out on was the Pearly* show at cuba dupa. all day i had been running into various tastemakers telling me that this was the band to see, but i got distracted and ended up elsewhere during their set, only walking by as people were leaving. as a critic i love to eavesdrop on post gig chatter because it gives you such a raw view into people’s thoughts on an act. the whole concert you’re collecting observations and you finally let them all out at once in a storm of opinion, and, getting caught in the crowd leaving Pearly* , i could only hear good things, s...