Thanks to everyone who responded to my 'controversial' post about reggae and hip hop in this country. I was surprised and pleased that most responses were supportive.
In the last show, Jochen responded by playing some local reggae as well as his some of his other Ja-flavoured faves. I'm not sure if he proved my case wrong with the local stuff but a nice try anyway, Joc 
Twas a soundclash of sorts. As I said on air, I'd put my French reggae up against NZ reggae any time. Have you heard that wicked Serge Gainsbourg album he did with Sly and Robbie? And I really enjoy that hit 'Joe le Taxi' by Vanessa Paradis. She mentions Yma Sumac in there!
Anyhow, the reggay will still be in the Basement jeggay for some time to come. More heavy heavy monster sounds to follow.
Thanks to Tim from Elephant Traks in Melbourne for sending us some Aussie Hip hop (the excellent Hermitude album) and to Stinky Jim for the Round Trip Mars release of the International Observer album. Now there's some moody local reggae. Tom Bailey has gone to Londinium but the music was made in Aotearoa.
In the meantime, I mentioned on air that I would be reviewing the DVD of the documentary 'Moog' this coming Saturday. Sadly, in the last few days, we've heard that Robert Moog died. So the show will include a tribute. I'm bringing some of my favourite Moog sounds to play on the show. So if you've got any suggestions of tracks you'd like to hear, let me know on this blog, and I'll try and play those selections on the next Basement. I've got Kool & the Gang, Billy Preston, Stereolab, Hot Butter and Funkadelic in the works, but would appreciate more suggestions. I even picked up a country moog album from a terrific antique store in Helensville some months ago.
As well as the stuff that makes it to the Basement playlist, I'm listening to a lot of honky tonk right now: Ernest Tubb, Faron Young, Buck Owens, Kitty Wells. Maybe I'll risk some of this on air. I'm sure the odd Basehead will appreciate a Texan twang or Tennessee waltz interspersed amongst the riddims and rhymes.
Otherwise picked up a few tracks by the Perceptionists whose album title track 'Black Dialogue' I will definitely play on the upcoming show. Killer Diller! The track about the Iraq war, 'Memorial Day', is fantastic too.
As Nick noted recently, the Gaza pull-out (sounds like post-coital penis movement) has taken up a shitload of media time and space. Oh, woe is me, it's just like being ripped from your home by the Nazis! I couldn't believe this analogy from some of the Zionist settlers. If only the Palestinians had as much television coverage for their mass expulsions from land and towns for the last sixty years. Everybody's praising the Israeli Defence Force for their peaceful repatriation of the settlers. I was thinking, Man, they've had a lot of practice turning people out of their houses and demolishing them, so you'd expect them to do a decent job. Maybe 6,000 Jewish settlers at most and 1.4 Palestinians have lived in Gaza. Those settlers occupied about a third of the land. However, even with the settlers gone, Gaza is a prison camp or Bantustan, depending on your point of view. It's by no means clear how much access the Israelis are going to give Palestinians to cross the border with themselves or their economic goods. Some commentators have said, despite a couple of settlements disappearing, the West Bank is still occupied and the Israeli government is committed to securing large Jewish settlements in that territory. The wall they've built has also taken more Palestinian land. Dropping Gaza as part of Greater Israel was also a demographic move. You can't have a state founded on a Jewish religious identity that might have more non-Jews than Jews in it. So cut off the Arab bits that threaten to shift the demographic balance. It will be a long time before the Palestinians can hope seriously that East Jerusalem will be liberated from occupation.
The Iraq debacle keeps getting worse, with the Americans hopefully realising that you can't just come up with a constitution in five minutes. Did the great founders of the United States have to do that? No, and they weren't even bombed to smithereens in their 'liberation'? Like the Mujahideen the USA supported in Afghanistan with Saudi Arabian help, including one-time CIA buddy Osama Bin Laden, this is a case of Dr Frankenstein's monster about to run amok. You say you're going to liberate the country, but then you create a situation that produces possible division of the nation into a federation that might dissolve into three nations. For a start, a Kurdistan. That will please the Turkish government no end. Then you punish the Sunni Arabs who had disproportionate power under Saddam Hussein. Well, you punish those who haven't gone into the puppet administration. In the process, you create a situation where Shias want more power and possibly an Islamic theocracy or Shariah law and thus potentially extend the influence of Iran and Islamist statism in the region. Iran is acting beligerent and goes on to develop its nuclear power because it knows the US is in above its head in Iraq. The war is more and more unpopular at home. Every day more news of dead troops. What next, a wave of September 11 movies to rebuild confidence and belief in the 'reasons' for going to war. Watch this space. And all in the name of bringing peace and democracy and ridding the world of weapons of mass destruction.
At home, I've actually watched quite a few of the election debates. The tax cut was bathetic. It seems not to have given National the leg-up it needed. Don Brash can't perform on radio and television. He says the same thing every time, doesn't recall his party's policies very easily and is a bit vague about details. Never mind certain policies going by lunchtime. I couldn't believe he made such a cheap and lame/cliched shot at the Greens with that crack about a Green Transport minister having us all ride bicycles. Groan. Helen Clark seems to have her teeth stuck in. Act is out it seems. So Rodney Hyde will be gone. Doesn't he remind you of Uncle Fester from the Addams Family? I'm hoping Winston gets trounced at the voting polls and disappears too. There's a chance now that he's seen Islamo-terrorists in every corner of Aotearoa. Although I fear that Winston might turn up as a talkshow host to haunt us, maybe with Mike King as a sidekick. OK, I'm screaming at the thought. I'm amazed that immigration, biculturalism meets multiculturalism debates have not entered that much into the campaign apart from the usual Treaty bashing and National's 4 year probation policy for all new migrants. On the latter, I was tempted to retort that all migrant workers should then not pay any taxes until they're given the green light to become legit residents of our fair isles. As far as the media coverage of the campaign goes, I like the directness and hands-on approach of the campaign but I found that whipped up audience in the TV1 debate between Clark and Brash a bit too much. It's New Zealand not the Globe Theatre. The proles on each side were yelling and whooping it up a storm. Well primed by the TVNZ folks. I'm sure Bill Ralston was out there egging em on. Gawn! Louder louder! Anyway, look forward to the next two weeks and wonder if the banana skins will owe their slipperiness to some added oil from the media or to the actions of the political combatants themselves.
How come the election campaigns haven't had their own songs? Or maybe I've missed something?
Safe travel to the US for Nick and thanks again to Joc for coming in last Saturday. See you this one too.
Look forward to hearing from readers out there.
NZ