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.
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.
What a legend song this is. I used to listen to it every morning when I sat down at my desk job in London, way back in the winter of ’02. What different times those were…
Max Romeo and the Upsetters had just the right sound to lift the spirits after trudging through the grey, smokey, crowded morass that is London’s streets, and there was something about putting on an iron shirt and chasing the devil out of earth (or ert…) that I thought was really cool. Like, you’re not gonna get me, London! I’ve got an iron shirt and I’m just here for the money and will be back in South Africa soon! But whatever – I was a young, 22 years old, smoking a lot of hash and so it made sense at the time.
Enjoy the song (produced by absolute legend Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, by the way). It’s awesome, and if you don’t like it, then you hate freedom, children, love and having a good time. Shame on you.
As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been giving Pinback a lot of playtime lately. For those who haven’t heard of this band, Pinback are a pretty unique outfit that have been around since the late 90′s, releasing 4 studio albums and 8 EPs in this time. The band is, amazingly enough, headed up by just two guys – Rob Crow and Armistead Burwell Smith IV (is that a cool name or what?) with a full roster of guest instrumentalists and drummers over the years.
To classify this band into a genre is a bit of a challenge because there is such great variety between songs (and sometimes within individual songs), yet they have a pretty distinct sound which has carried over all of their releases that is very identifiably Pinback… an indie-folk-funk-rock mix that seems to set them quite apart from the pack. The closest I have heard to them would be Hyperstory, but even that’s not quite the same.
These guys also seem to be pretty hit and miss in that some people I’ve played them for absolutely dig it from the get go and immediately become huge Pinback fans, while others cast it aside very quickly, saying that it’s too ‘busy’ a sound. It’s easy to understand this band not being to everyone’s taste, but I’m of the camp who feel that what Pinback do with music is pretty much genius: give the songs a few listens and you’ll hear incredibly rich, complex compositions with staggering attention to detail carried over a range of instruments – all accompanied by lyrics that have the potential to touch the listener on a very deep level. This is one of those bands that if it connects with you, you’ll want to track down all their stuff and share it with your friends.
Pinback have put out a lot of great songs over the last 12 years, and choosing just a handful for this blog was no easy task. They’re definitely going to get another post some time soon, and I’ll also be giving them a mention when their upcoming album is released later in the year. Here’s four, though, that will give new listeners a pretty good taste of what they do. Enjoy.
Syracuse (from Summer in Abaddon, 2004):
…
B (from Offcell [EP], 2003):
…
Devil You Know (from Autumn of the Seraphs, 2007):
…
Off by 50 (from Autumn of the Seraphs, 2007):
…
You can download additional MP3′s from Pinback’s official site:
Lyon (from This is a Pinback CD, 1999)
Manchuria (from Some Voices [EP], 2002)
From Nothing to Nowhere (from Autumn of the Seraphs, 2007)
Well, I suppose I should have made a post about this a few days ago because A Sound Interest has been pretty quiet for about a week now. Anyway, I just got back from Port Alfred where I was commentating the Oakley Pro Junior – a classic trip up the coast with Gigs Celliers and Craig Kolesky.
Oakley kitted us out with their Nissan Navara and, with the Red Bull jetski in tow, we headed towards Port Alfred in the wee hours of last Thursday morning. It was a trip full of laughs and analysis of the ASP World Tour, with the standout moment of the trip being when we stopped at a dodgy pub in Bluewater Bay at about 2 in the afternoon to watch the Jordy vs Kelly heat from the Billabong Pro in Brazil. Gigs, Craig and myself were crowded around a laptop, watching the live webcast streaming on Craig’s 3G connection, sipping on beers while curious locals looked on – the kind of small town curious locals who sit in pubs at 2 in the afternoon.
Anyway, Jordy lost, which sucked, but it was pretty classic to be checking heat sheets, working out times and just how much time we had between the heats we wanted to watch and how far we needed to drive to get 3G reception, plus make it to Port Alfred before the OPJ opening ceremony started (“If we leave now we can get to Alexandria and catch the semis!” And so on.)
Just like last year, the event scored excellent waves – East Beach is an incredible spot when it’s on. Shaun Joubert took his third OPJ title with Chad du Toit, who I felt was the standout in every heat leading up to the finals, taking second place.
There was a thick party on Saturday night – plenty of laughs courtesy of Chad, Gigs and Mr Greg Emslie, and a lot of drinks bought for us by one DJ Darren, whose death-stare eyeballs, penchant for shooters and ability to bring girls over to the table is second to none. Big night, big hangover.
We made the slow cruise back to Cape Town over two days, meeting up with the crew from Coast 2 Coast 4 Cancer… if you haven’t heard of these guys, they’re riding jetskis from Mozambique to Namibia to raise awareness for Cancer. Excellent stuff.
On Monday morning we surfed incredible waves at the least-secret secret spot along the Garden Route. It was cool to see some old friends in the lineup, one of whom greeted me with “hey bru, how are you? Cool to check you man! If you write about this spot we’ll kill you!” all with a nice big smile and a handshake. Shakas bru.
Monday night I made it back, tired and laughed out, coffee and biltong’d up to the eyeballs, after driving back to Cape Town via Robertson and Worcester. Seriously, that drive is amazing – so beautiful, and really worth checking out. Just head inland from Swellendam for a much better drive than the N2 stretch leading in to Cape Town.
And that’s it, trip report done, back to work, got stuff on the go for Hurley and a very late deadline for a surf mag that I better get cracking on. Been having a bit of a Pinback resurgence lately, so look for a post about them in the next few days.
Shot for reading, and thanks to Gigs and Craig for a classic trip. And Greg Emslie for that incredible phrase that shall not be repeated here.
