MetaFilter posts tagged with NZ

2 fried amps, a drummer playing lead, and brains full of boo: The Dead C.'s Harsh 70s Reality turns 20

porn in the woods — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:39:33 -0800

One of New Zealand's greatest-ever exports of experimental music, The Dead C. have built a huge catalog of challenging "rock" music over the last 25 years that offers massively dosed psychedelic excess, improvised all-night flights, blistering free noise and deconstruction of blazing garage punk for adventurous listeners. They've cheekily called themselves "The AMM of punk rock" and it's not far from the truth. Their high-water mark -- the double-LP Harsh 70s Reality -- has reached twentieth anniversary status and has just been reissued on vinyl by legendary US imprint Siltbreeze, restoring a few cuts that didn't make it to the late 1990s CD re-release and offering this fearless free music to a new generation of fans. A trio featuring guitarists Bruce Russell, Michael Morley (also vocalist) and drummer Robbie Yeats, The Dead C. formed in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1986. After a few small-run cassettes on Bruce Russell's Xpressway label and an LP on Flying Nun (DR503, 1988), their music -- at this time, a hall-of-mirrors take on downer songcraft a la The Fall's Dragnet and Grotesque and This Heat's Deceit -- began circulating amongst North American tastemakers. Flying Nun released their second LP Eusa Kills in 1990, and their first American release hit the streets when Siltbreeze released the Helen Said This 12" EP, which showed off the band's love of the extended techniques of Sonic Youth's EVOL/Sister period (the Xpressway label derives its namesake from SY's "Xpressway To Yr Skull")
After several years of gestation, their "desire to really push what we were doing beyond any nice idea of a formula of song" produced Harsh 70s Reality. Opening with the sidelong improvisation of "Driver UFO" and wrapping up with somewhat more conventional song structures ("Constellation," "Baseheart" and "Hope") where the muffled emotional weight of Morley's mumble hotwires affecting songcraft to the group's free rock, it was with this LP where the group made their greatest impact with United States audiences. In the next 2 years, Siltbreeze pushed out a CD reissue of the 1990 Trapdoor Fucking Exit cassette (originally released in an edition of 50), featuring DC favorites like "Sky" and "Mighty" -- blasted garage punk like you've never quite heard it -- along with a pseudo-live LP (Clyma est Mort, a canny reimaging of The Fall's Totale's Turns) and the zonked drone/psych of the Operation of the Sonne LP.
Since the mid-1990s, they've pushed out a release every few years, and the 2006 compilation Vain, Erudite and Stupid compiles tracks from all major releases. Still an active group, although the three members live in separate cities, they will be playing at All Tomorrow's Parties in Melbourne, Australia in February 2013. Michael Morley's solo project Gate has released a small stack of LPs and cassettes since the very early 1990s, while Bruce Russell has several solo albums and collaborations to his name, as well as his duo with Alastair Galbraith, A Handful of Dust.

KITTY!

The Whelk — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:56:41 -0800

Little Girl Vs. Lion - Wellington Zoo

A bleak day for NZ internet users

chairish — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 04:09:44 -0800

Just over a year ago New Zealand's parliament debated, passed and then scrapped a law which would in effect withdraw internet access from those accused of illegal filesharing. Today, the New Zealand government is using "urgency" (ostensibly called in order to pass Christchurch earthquake emergency legislation) to pass a new version of that controversial law.

Weather Geekery

shelleycat — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 02:05:05 -0800

I've been greatly enjoying the NZ MetService weather blog for a while now. There are posts about cloud formations, weather pioneers, forecasting, and all kinds of other weather geekery. It does have an NZ slant in places but everyone has weather, and the technical information included is fascinating whatever your location. As a bonus, check out the MetService flickr stream, gorgeous user-submitted weather photographs.

Police are not looking for anyone else in connection with this incident.

rodgerd — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 01:20:47 -0800

Description of Incident: POLICE SAVE DOLPHIN

Pike River Mine Disaster

chairish — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 23:26:30 -0800

New Zealand Police announced this afternoon that they believe that all 29 miners missing at Pike River are now presumed dead. After several days of raised and dashed hopes, a second explosion at the coal mine has devasted hopes that the miners could possibly be alive.

Do you have any plenkton?

UbuRoivas — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:50:51 -0800

Beached Az - the adventures of a whale stranded on a New Zealand beach [official site]

Haast's eagles were to NZ as Dingos are to Australia

filthy light thief — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:41:54 -0800

Legends from New Zealand held that there was a large predator bird, known as pouakai, that was big enough to carry human beings off to its nest or den. Some people associated stories of Pouakai with the giant flightless Moa, extinct in 1773. Others thought it might be another extinct giant bird on the South Island, Haast's Eagle (Harpagornis moorei). The eagle, locally known as Te Hokioi, has been extinct for 500 years, overlapping with the early settlers by some 200 years. There was some speculation that the giant eagle was a scavenger due to partially protected nasal openings, which are benefit to protect nasal cavities when digging into carcasses, analogous to features found on accipitrid vultures. Recent studies have provide there is proof that the Haast's Eagle was a fearsome predator, with talons like tigers and the ability to dive on prey at 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph). Weighing twice as much as the Steller's Sea Eagle, the heaviest modern eagle at 9 kilograms (20 lb), the Haast's Eagle was the only large predator on the South Island. It's primary prey was most likely the Moa, the largest of reached about 3.7 m (12 ft) in height with neck outstretched, and weighed about 230 kg (510 lb). Because it is unlikely that even two Haast's Eagles could eat a complete Moa before it went bad, these kills were bounties for smaller predatory birds, from whom they may have evolved. The absence of mammalian competitors facilitated the evolution of much larger eagles and owls on Cuba and may have likewise precipitated the rapid morphological shift, with an increase in body size by at least an order of magnitude in less than 2 million years. Historic myth, fact, and fiction Another Waitaha myth tells of a contest between the hawk and hokioi. The hawk said it could reach the heavens; the hokioi said it could reach the heavens; there was contention between them. The hokioi said to the hawk, “what shall be your sign?” The hawk replied, “kei” (the peculiar cry of the hawk). Then the hawk asked, “what is to be your sign?” The hokioi replied, “hokioi–hokioi–hu–u.” These were there words. They then flew and approached the heavens. The winds and the clouds came. The hawk called out “kei” and descended, it could go no further on account of the winds and the clouds, but the hokioi disappeared into the heavens. Though the Pouakai could attack a person, there is information from people eating the eagles, detailing that a particular wood was needed to sufficiently cook their haunches. One of the mysteries and curiosities of New Zealand is a UFO explosion in Tapanui, New Zealand, 1178, which the author believes lead to telekinetic pollution of New Zealand that caused in past, and still causes now, that various organisms which live in New Zealand to sporadically mutate to gigantic sizes. Based on a blurry photograph and some footprints found in mud, some cryptozoologists are claiming the Moa lives on.

Kiwicon Hacks Up Media Coverage

sycophant — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 21:55:09 -0800

The organisers of New Zealand hacking convention Kiwicon have created some PR the only way they know how, l33t h4x0ring. Using a XSS bug in NZ's largest newspaper the NZ Herald they created a fake URL that injected javascript to rewrite an article there. The URL got passed around and soon ended up with genuine media coverage in NZ Herald's biggest competitor Stuff. An earlier effort on the NZ Computerworld site was quickly fixed and got no media coverage.

Fake ferrit fur

Samuel Farrow — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 01:45:27 -0800

In New Zealand at Ferrit you can buy things online. It hasn't had the best press. But it doesn't do itself any favours either.

Significant insignificant

Samuel Farrow — Wed, 03 May 2006 03:02:57 -0800

New Zealand is a backwater when it comes to high speed internet. Today the government has done something about it.

The kiwi, it is French, you see...

afiler — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 21:15:44 -0800

Kiwi Actually French: Film At 11. The French wine industry is notably protective of domestic producers' rights to use terms like Champagne and Burgundy, both geographic indications of areas of France. The Institut National des Appellation d’Origine even protested against the US registration of the trademark Goats do Roam (sounding similar to Côtes du Rhône). Now one winemaker, Lacheteau, which sells French wine under the brand Kiwi Cuvee, has successfully scared off a New Zealand winery from using the "Kiwi" appelation in the EU.

Kiwi ingenuity at work

Wataki — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 01:39:22 -0800

Time machine for sale. Not too novel, no, but the answers to the questions are great. "Its reassuring to me to know that it all works and i was on the right track. i alot of people thought i was dreamin, and said I was crazy and a dick head. the spatial retemporalizer was added after I sold it so can't help there."

The New Zealand Net Awards

benbrown — Mon, 03 Sep 2001 14:44:38 -0800

The New Zealand Net Awards have announced their finalists. Picked by a panel of people including Web saavy magazine editors, personal Web site operators, and tech-radio deejays, the NZ awards seem much more even handed, open, and real than the Webbies (albeit only for NZ sites...) And, as far as I can tell, they're doing it on almost no budget. Pretty impressive. Why doesn't this community start something like it?