A church + great NZ musicians = one amazing night

Four very talented New Zealand musicians performing acoustic sets in St Michael’s Church – what more could you ask for?  I’m still buzzing from the Classic Hits Acoustic Church Tour that was held in the St Michael’s Church last night.  It’s not often that you get to see four great artists in the same performance, but this tour was a chance to see Lydia Cole, Nathan King, Greg Johnson and Boh Runga perform an acoustic set and, in the case of Greg and Boh, to perform together.  Lydia Cole, an up-and-coming singer/songwriter that I hope to hear more of, started the evening with her songs of longing.  Next Nathan King upped the tempo with some great acoustic versions of songs from his latest solo album The Crowd.  After a short break Greg Johnson and Boh Runga teamed up to give us some of their best songs.    The St Michael’s Church is a fantastic venue for these acoustic performances because the acoustics are amazing and you can hear every word that they sing.  Liam Finn played here a couple of years ago and that had to be the best concert I’ve ever been to.  I’m sure there will be more of these types of performance in this venue and I would totally recommend you go to the next one.

If you like these musicians or have yet to discover them we have plenty of their music in the library:

- Lydia Cole has yet to release an album but you can get a feel for her music on the Birds of Paradise CD.  This CD includes many female NZ artists and song great songs.

- Nathan King’s first solo album The Crowd and albums from his former band, Zed.

- Boh Runga’s first solo album Right Here and albums from her former band, Stellar

- Greg Johnson’s latest Greatest Hits has just been released and we also have his previous albums.

 

Essential reading for rockstar wannabes

Okay, so I’ve always wanted to be a rockstar.  I know, I know, not a very original aspiration to have and librarian-rockstars are few and far between but that’s why they’re called “dreams”.  So naturally my eye was taken by the following recent acquisitions to the library collection.  For what hath a librarian-rockstar if not the urge (and skill) to research her dream profession?

Battle of the band names : the best and worst band names ever and all the brilliant, colorful, stupid ones in between – This is required reading because there’s no way I’m going to be able to coast to rockstar supremacy on the back of my own mediocre talent. I will need a band and getting the name right is trés important.  To be fair this is a bit of a one joke book and the sort of thing that you can just dip in and out of but having said that there are plenty of noteworthy additions.  My personal favourite?  John Cougar Concentration Camp.  Oh, and Kiwi bands like The Formyula are included (for bad spelling probably, tsk).

Crap lyrics : a celebration of all the very worst pop lyrics of all time– ever! – Once I have my imaginary band we will necessarily have to write some songs (though we won’t be so much “pop” as synth-dub-barbecue reggae-neopunk). It might be nice to know what to avoid in terms of lyricism. When you think about it most pop lyrics seem to be a bit crap, don’t they? I mean even the hallowed Beatles were fairly banal in their day.

Love love me do, you know I love you, I’ll always be true. So ple-ee-ee-ease, love me do.

Now that I think about it, even the syntax is a bit skewiff in that one.  So even the rock greats can pen some howlers from time to time and this book is just the one to point at the naked rock ‘n’ roll emperor and tell him to get his kit on.

The complete idiot’s guide to starting a band – ‘Nuff said?

So, any nominations for worst band name or crappest ever lyrics?