Space Dust

(Arc Cafe, Dunedin, 20 May)

Wow! Several years ago, the guys at Crawlspace (RIP) made me buy a Space Dust CD, telling me that they were one of NZ's coolest bands. I bought it and loved it, but have never managed to see them live. I've fixed that now, and god, these guys are making just the sort of sounds I love. The key instrument is Duane Zarakov (forrmer King Loser) on drums, producing long meandering narratives backed up with heavily distorted guitar and bass. Then there's a guy with an insane keybaord, sometimes downright cheesy, and an equally insane style of playing the sax. Almost as much jazz improv as rock and roll. And don't let us forget Violet on vocals - not so much singing, as giving spoken word commentary. There were a few screw ups - she got a bit clever with her pedals in the last song and managed to silence her voice - but in a couple of her songs, I was strongly reminded on the Fiery Furnaces.

Ooh - must go, the Puddle is on (how great is it that Arc gives us computers to update from mid-gig.

Update, still at Arc. My God, the Puddle do some long gigs! Over 90 monutes in and they're still going strong. A very tight performance tonight, great texturing of the bass guitar with lead and his voice, even if I really have no idea what he's singing about half the time!

Back to Violet: there's the voting for the top foxy female at the BNETS. I was a bit embarrassed by the youthfulness of the choices available. If I could have voted for someone like Violet, I'd have done so. I was sitting here watching her, she seems great, and the odd thought occurred to that there's actually only one degree of seperation between me and her - I could probably make wheels turn so that I get to meet her.