Where have you been?

If you’re wondering where the posts have disappeared to for the last, oh, year… it’s because I’ve been traveling around the world and blogging over at http://www.thebombsurf.com/swindler – go and check it out.

Basically, I won a year’s round the world surf trip courtesy of theBOMBsurf.com and a host of sponsors that include RVCA, Skullcandy, True Blue Travel, Digicape, Nikon, Spider Surfboards, Ocean Minded and Island Tribe. All these wonderful people kitted me out with everything I needed to travel and document my year, from clothes to digital camera to headphones to shoes and even a MacBook and iPhone 4.

I’ve just arrived back in London after leaving at the start of the year, and, wow, what an incredible journey it’s been. The whole trip is documented on the site, including archives from the very first post.

Now that I’m back in the UK and back on regular and reliable (mostly) Internet access, it’s time to catch up with Twitter (I’ve been using the @surfswindler account almost exclusively this year) and get @soundinterest going again. Probably with a slight change of direction, though, as it’s soon going to be time to expand this blog into a more significant presence on the web. But more on that another time.

A new song post! It’s Bright Eyes’ Road to Joy

Conor Orberst

Well, once again, A Sound Interest has seen a serious delay between posts. Meh, so what.

I’m in London now, and today’s song has always reminded me of being in a big city (New York first and foremost, to be honest, but London a close second). This is a great one (hopefully you’ll recognise a trend here…) from Bright Eyes. The band is headed by Conor Oberst, who is very good at words. You’ll probably recognise the melody from Beethoven’s Ode To Joy.

As I often stress in these posts, you’ll do well to catch the lyrics. Good poetry right there.

Here you go – enjoy.

At last, a new song post! It’s Jethro Tull’s Mother Goose.

Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson

Hey hey, look at this… it’s been a good while and finally I have something to post again.

Well, truth be told I’ve had something to post for a long time, but the Billabong Pro, magazine deadlines and general laziness got in the way of doing it any sooner.

So here we go, enjoy a song I’ve been digging lately… it’s an old classic, very fun, and if you don’t know Jethro Tull, shame on you.

Try catch the lyrics (as always…).

Such a delay – Grahamstown Festival good times are too good!

Guy Buttery put on some great performances at this year's Grahamstown Festival

Wow, I am the worst at regular blogging. In short, I went up to Grahamstown for a wedding, didn’t realise it was Festival until I was very nearby, and ended up turning my weekend visit into a two week stay that included five days in the Transkei. Madness. A Sound Interest lingered in the back of my mind all the while, but was obviously not enough of a priority what with all the other radness happening all around me!

Friday night at Sound Kiln 2010

So, Grahamstown festival rocked face as well. I started my visit off with a night at the Sound Kiln, which really went off – the highlight of the night, for me, was the performance by Jam Jar, fronted by Paul Stubbs. Those guys are really good and you should check them out if you get a chance.

Keith, Mackers & Mini at the Burdock wedding

The wedding was sick as well, and I have uploaded a couple shots to Facebook for those interested. The whole thing happened out at Nduna Lodge near Salem, and was a really awesome traditional Celtic affair, with no religion coming in to get in the way – a short, intimate ceremony followed by a long reception. Cool people, lots to drink, and another cameo appearance from ‘Big Words Are Totally Rad’.

Upon my return to Grahamstown I had the good pleasure of watching Guy Buttery while solidly hungover and not a little nauseous. Still enjoyed the show, though – so much so that I then saw him again a few nights later playing along with Nibs van der Spuy and Steve Newman at a one-off gig called ’18 Strings’. These guys are really amazing – Nibs has such a good voice for folk music and mixes in some very South African rhythms to create awesome, authentic local surf-folk that is in no way derivative of other guys doing similar stuff. You should really see him play. Guy Buttery is just amazing on the guitar, absolutely rocking out in his mid-20′s with many years of honing his skills. Guy is a seriously talented guitarist and well deserving of the awards and accolades he’s already received. And Steve Newman? Man… I’m not even going to write about the guy. Such a legend. I don’t need to tell you anything about how amazing he is on his array of guitars. Nothing short of uttery mastery of audible art.

One of many that went unridden

I then found myself in the Transkei for five days, staying at Jungle Monkey in Port St Johns. Epic place, some good waves right out the front, but I wasn’t going to surf there by myself… A great road trip to an awesome place, though, with some very good company. Check them out if you’re in the area. Great live music from Mike, Ashley and the crew… good reggae stuff and sort of ‘reggaefied’ covers of some classics. Kickin’ rad!

So there’s the trip report in brief. I have some song posts lined up now, and gonna get back on it shortly. Yeh.

Weddings and surfings 2.0

The iPhone camera is not the best camera. Expect better pics soon…

OK, it’s been a bit of a while since my last update. Need to step that up… More great music coming soon, promise!

But this is just a quick one to say I am back in the Garden Route and absolutely loving it. The not-secret superbank is going off, and I got some sick tubes last night, and then absolutely barreled off my head this morning. Surfing is so fucking rad. It’s been three weeks since my last surf, with almost the entire month of May spent out of the water as well. This is all because of a knee injury that’s been bothering me for months now. I’ve been seeing a physio to sort it out and I’m almost hundreds again, and this morning was so incredibly rewarding. Chilling out now until high tide this evening, and then going for another one. This may well come at the expense of watching the Bafana game, but hey… surfing.

And the wedding part? Well, this weekend two old Rhodes connections, Neil and Leslie, are getting their marry on near Grahamstown. I have already committed to going hard at said wedding, and the crew in attendance are not alcohol-averse. Good times ahead!

OK, I’m off to meet some friends then check the surf again this afternoon. Life is great! Enjoy your day, people.

The Decemberists – The Legionnaire’s Lament

Greetings all. Here’s another one from The Decemberists who, as some of you well know, are holding down my ‘best band in the world’ top spot right now. I recently heard that they’ve gone into the studio to record their sixth album, but as far as I know, no definite release date is on the cards yet. They’ve also got REM guitarist Peter Buck on board for the album. Decemberist lead singer and song writer Colin Meloy posted this on his Twitter feed a while back: “First official day of #6 practice; made Peter Buck play my fake-REM riffs and he didn’t seem perturbed. Nor litigious.” Good job.

Castaways and Cutouts

So, today’s song is The Legionnairs’s Lament from their debut album Castways and Cutouts, released in 2002. This is a Decemberists classic, my favourite of the album, and is a perfect example of their music. It’s got a fun rhythm, carefully and poetically crafted lyrics (Meloy doesn’t use words by accident) and as is standard for Decemberists fare, tells a great story. The speaker is a French legionnaire far away from his home and his love, bumming out hard at being stuck in the desert remembering all the awesome waiting for him back in Paris.

Give this one a good listen, and try catch the lyrics (an important part of getting the most out of The Decemberists). The upbeat sound of the song, despite being a lament, displays a great awareness of fond rememberances and the joy that can come from taking yourself back to a good place or a better time – something we do when things aren’t all going too great, or we’re somewhere you really don’t want to be. So even though the Legionnaire in question is really not stoked with how things are right now, it’s all conveyed in a really positive way, with virtuoso use of imagery that immerses one in the sights and sounds of late 19th century Paris.

Enjoy the song.

Steve Miller Band – Serenade from the Stars

It’s another cold, grey Monday and with it comes another song which I reckon most of you haven’t heard but should enjoy – Serenade from the Stars by Steve Miller Band. I remember hearing this one for the first time quite a few year’s back in Plan B’s skate video Virtual Reality, and I immediately took to this little known mid-70′s gem.

There’s not a whole lot I want to say about this one other than it does a great job of capturing what (I can only assume, because I wasn’t there…) was the feeling of an era of breaking away from stringent norms and a structured and long-established status quo by putting things into perspective: what could be easier to remind us just how deeply ingrained so many of the social constructs are which we take for granted as necessary and normal parts of human life, than stepping way, way back and reminding ourselves that we’re just thinking meat on lonely planet hurtling through space, and so much of the shit we get ourselves so stressed out about really, really, really doesn’t matter that much. Chill out, everyone.

Thanks.

Enjoy the song.

Storm and Sean’s wedding

OK, wow. What a good party this was. Catching up with the vintage Rhodes Surf Club gang for a good old fashioned wedding blowout – rad.

My friends Storm and Sean got hitched this past weekend in Umhlanga and after the nuptial mass, we got down to serious business at the Oyster Box. All the tables were named after places the happy samurai couple had visited in Japan… Mt Fuji, Kyoto and the like. What was our table named?

Pretty apt, I suppose. Incidentally, all of that alcohol was snuck into the reception in a backpack. I guess we wanted to relive some golden Grahamstown moments… good times.

So we threw back all of the above bottles and then some, the open bar (free wine and local beers…) seeing to it that we never went thirsty during our epic five course meal. Just a question, though: how many actually made it to dessert? I know I was (literally) leaving my mark on the dancefloor by that point.

I also did some undercover investigative journalism and caught the following reprobates who had rudely left the reception to go and watch the Stormers lose to the Bulls:

For shame, guys. How can you look so happy with yourselves? This was Sean and Storm’s special day. Honestly, some people…

Also, this happened:

That’s the happy couple enjoying the real first dance. And what are those black scuff marks off behind them? It is a mystery…

Other things also took place, some of which are not fit to print. A lot of it involved loud voices, including one gentleman eyeing all the ladies before shouting “I’ll fuck all of yous! I’ll fuck all of yous, even the married ones!”. Who does that kind of thing, at a wedding no less?

So, I ended up consuming what I can easily claim as the most alcohol I’ve ever drunk in one night, ever. They just kept feeding us and bringing us drinks… this went on from about 3:30 to well after midnight and… oh wait, what was that about a bottle of champagne drunk in the church gardens while waiting for the wedding to begin? Oh shi-

Good times, people. Congrats to Sean and Storm, and shot to the old gang for making it such an epic weekend. I’m now going to try and keep myself dry until Neil and Leslie’s wedding on the 26 June. It’s going to be the same group of characters, but with a few serious bad seeds thrown in as well. Expect a trip report from that one too, if I survive…

Weddings and surfings

So, just a quick note that I’m on my way to Durban for a wedding. Hope there’s going to be good waves.

Full trip report to come – I already scored some really fun surf today at Vic Bay and the same not-so-secret secret spot I surfed three weeks ago.

Cheers guys, more to come soon.

Be Good Tanyas – The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs

It’s Monday, it’s cold, and a good song for this morning would be something with some bounce, good rhythm and warm lyrics to counter this creeping winter.

Here’s a fitting piece from the Be Good Tanyas that checks all the boxes while also standing as a classic song for any time of the year… The Littlest Birds from their 2000 album, Blue Horse.

The Be Good Tanyas are a three-piece from Vancouver, Canada with strong country/folk influences and a very bluegrass-ey sound to their work – easy, fun listening, nice variation in their songs, and music that takes me back to a time of afternoon barbeques and warm pubs in Croyde, North Devon. They’re very, very cool.

I dig this photo. Interesting looking people.

Well, here’s the song, hosted on YouTube. It’s a cool video with a slightly different rendition to the original album recording – try track that down too, if you can. Enjoy.