A confession of sorts

I had it in mind to talk about my wonderful friend Beth in this blog post because I got to see her last weekend. But in conversation over (more than) a few drinks, Beth brought up a very good point, which I will get to shortly.

BETH BRASH!!

First, a few words on Beth: She's from New Zealand, she's hilarious, she's amazing, she's the reason this blog exists, and it's her birthday tomorrow. She's also currently traveling in Europe, which is how I got to see her last weekend and this weekend. And I got to meet her fiance, who may not be so funny in real life, but he makes up for it by being hilarious online and having a formidable beard.

Beth is a food blogger of some repute in New Zealand, and we were having a chat about how everybody expects her to be a food snob. Which led us to discussing music snobbery. Now, I will be the first to admit that I'm a music snob. It's one of the first things I tell people the first time I have a discussion with them about music. I will absolutely judge you based on your musical taste. That's not to say I won't like you if I think you have horrible taste in music (That sentence should have ended with me saying something like "but I will like you less," but when I thought about it, that's not actually true. Some of my closest friends have horrible taste in music, and I like them despite that. So I guess I should say that I will judge you based on your musical taste, but in reality it will have no bearing on how I feel about you. But it will make me like you more sooner if we've just met.).

Generally speaking, snobbery would involve turning your nose up at anything you deem below you. So you would think that I hate pop music. And it's true, I do. But (and here comes the confession...) I recognize that there is a time and a place where pop music is enjoyable, and there are even a few pop songs that I really, really like. See, it's only a confession of sorts, because I didn't even confess to liking pop music. Only to tolerating it and being ok with it in certain situations.

?uestlove sipping tea while DJing

This conversation with Beth was in part spurred on by me talking about seeing ?uestlove do a DJ set at a club in Shanghai a few months ago. I went with a friend, and when we first got there ?uestlove was playing old school hip-hop and soul music, which is what you would expect of him. But as the night progressed, he transitioned into pop music. To me, it was weird to see such an influential figure in hip-hop playing anything but what he's famous for. However this is an illustration of the first scenario in which I find pop music acceptable: clubs. And so does ?uestlove, which made me feel much better about feeling that way. Also worth mentioning is that ?uestlove was enjoying tea during his set, which he would very daintily pour from a teapot in between mixing songs. See photographic evidence herein.

The song during his set that really drove this home is We Found Love by Rihanna. I don't dislike Rihanna, I think that as far as pop music goes, she's actually not bad. And I do like this song, though I think it was ?uestlove playing it that made me finally ready to admit it.





And actually, that song Stay with Mikky Ekko is great. That song I like a lot and have even sought out on Spotify.

Another situation when pop music is acceptable is karaoke. Pop music is always great for karaoke. Pop music and classic rock anthems. And the more you drink, the better karaoke gets, and the more fun pop music becomes. At the moment, this is my favorite karaoke song:





God I hate Ke$ha, but that song is fun. Very, very fun. Generally you'll find me on top of chairs or tables or anything available jumping around and stomping my feet during this song. I even find myself lingering in stores if this song is playing so that I can enjoy it without anybody knowing, because if it ever came on while I was in public, I would probably change the station. And I don't think I would ever voluntarily seek it out and listen to it.

If I had to choose, though, I'd say my favorite pop singer is Katy Perry. I've got a soft spot for Katy Perry. I don't think she makes good music, but I like her music. You would never find me listening to it of my own accord, but if it came on, maybe I wouldn't change the channel, even if other people were around. And if I was drunk at karaoke, I would most definitely be singing along at the top of my lungs.





Despite it's horrible, horrible lyrics, Firework is probably my favorite song by her. Or maybe even more so because of it's horrible lyrics. Hard to say.

And one last confession, which is that there is one Taylor Swift song I like. I hate Taylor Swift, she may be one of my least favorite artists out there. But I really like this song.




That was very difficult for me to admit. I hope you all appreciate that. And I hope you appreciate the Portuguese subtitles, because for some reason I couldn't find a normal version of this video.

It looks like once again I've written a blog without talking about Milagres. So again I will say, go listen to them. And don't expect any of the songs on today's blog to end up on my Spotify 2014 Blog playlist. They won't.

Lo-Fang

I went down to Munich last night to see CHVRCHES. It's actually my 2nd time seeing them. They played at the music festival I went to in Singapore and Australia. I watched their set in Singapore, but only saw half of the first song in Australia. Their set overlapped with Daughter, who I planned to see (hardest decision of the day), and they had sound problems at the beginning so ended up starting late. They put on a pretty great show in general, though it was a bit disappointing last night, if I'm being honest. I know they've only got one album (a great album), but they played for 1 hour. 1 hour and 5 minutes, including encore. It was kind of ridiculous. And the crowd was really shitty. Generally German crowds are pretty good, but not last night. Everyone was really quiet, nobody was really dancing or anything. It was really strange. I felt bad for Lauren Mayberry, cause she's adorable and I just want to make her happy. They did have some pretty awesome lighting going on, though.

Me and my best friend Henry
on the first day of Spring

Anyway, last night's concert is not what I'm here to talk about. Before the concert I went to see my friends the Mangs. I also spent the weekend with them. I know them from Japan. They were living in Iwaki at the same time as me, and before and after as well, but Andreas is originally from Germany, so they've since moved back here and live in Munich with their kids. One of which, Henry, is my best friend. He's 3, but we get along really well. We like to play with Legos. Obviously. Who doesn't? Their daughter Anna didn't used to like me, she always gave me weird looks like she didn't trust me. Now she smiles and lets me hold her without crying, even for extended periods of time. When we're together she does most of the playing, and it's generally focused on my ears and beard, or flicking my bottom lip with her finger.

Anna likes me!
(even if she doesn't look like it)

I spend the weekend with them pretty often. I'd say at least once a month when I'm in Germany I go down to see them, either for the full weekend, or just for an evening or something. And when I go for concerts I generally stop in and have dinner with them first. Our weekends are usually pretty relaxed. We'll go out for a few hours to the park or a museum or whatever, but there's only so much you can do with little kids, and only so long we can be out and about before they start complaining. Which is when we head home to play with Legos again. So generally nothing too eventful, but it's always really nice to go down and hang out with them. It seems like wherever I go I find these families that adopt me, and it feels like I'm just hanging out with my family when I'm down with them for a weekend, which is really nice.

This weekend was pretty eventful, though. In addition to Anna now liking me, we went and saw baby Polar Bears at the Munich Zoo. The weather was supposed to be really shitty all weekend, and for the most part it was, but Saturday morning it was nice, so we managed to go see them. As did like 16,000 other people or something, according to German news. But then, there are 4 month old twin polar bears, so can you blame everyone for going to see them? They were bigger than I expected, like the size of a small/medium sized dog, but their adorableness lived up to all my expectations.

Eisbären

Sunday was when the real fun happened, though. Normally if I go to Munich for the weekend I get a ride with a colleague instead of taking a car on my own. Then he'll drive me back with him on Monday morning, which involved getting up very early. I decided this weekend that I would head back up Sunday night and get a good night's sleep instead of waking up really early on Monday morning, so the Mangs decided they'd drive me up. They'd been meaning to come see Schrobenhausen (which they now tell me is cuter than most tiny German country towns, and better maintained, so that makes me feel better about being here), so this was the perfect chance. And we took the opportunity to go to Schrobenhausen's premiere (and only) tourist attraction: The European Asparagus Museum.

I've been meaning to go, because how could I miss the opportunity to go see something so ridiculous? Schrobenhausen is the asparagus capital of Germany, so it makes sense they'd have it here I guess. The place is, as one would expect, very tiny. But I did learn a lot about asparagus. I knew it was a delicious vegetable, but I did not realize how much people actually loved it historically. In fact, they loved it so much that it was the focus of many works of art, including a couple by Manet. And there are special serving dishes for asparagus. It was also considered impolite to eat asparagus with a fork and knife, so these special finger tong things were designed specifically for eating asparagus. Even Mr. Faberge, of Faberge egg fame, made a special solid-silver, gold-plated set of special asparagus utensils for the Russian Tsar. It's kind of ridiculous how far this love for asparagus used to go, but I do really want a couple pairs of asparagus tongs...

Ok, enough about me. I was debating between a couple of artists to talk about today. I had been thinking I'd do Milagres, which I said last time I might do, and I still intend to do, but instead I'm going to talk about Lo-Fang. You should still go listen to Milagres, though, because this is the second time I've mentioned them and they are great.

Anyway, I found Lo-Fang a few weeks ago, don't remember how. It's weird for me with Lo-Fang, because I really like him, but at the same time I'm kind of torn on him. I love his music, I think it's great, but there's something about it at the same time that just doesn't sound right to me. I think it might be his vocals, which are nice, but maybe they just don't seem to fit? I'm not sure. But none of this has stopped me from listening to his debut album, Blue Film, a lot. And thinking it's good enough that I need to share it with you. Because it is really good. So I don't know what my problem is. But I like him. I promise.

I'd say the closest thing I can think of is maybe Woodkid, but he's much better than Woodkid. There's a lot of great instrumentation on the album, and great use of strings together with synthetic elements which I love. I think it's done in a really unique and tasteful way. His first single, #88, is one of my favorite tracks on the album, and right from the beginning you can hear what I'm talking about.




I love the way he combines the picked strings with whatever that synthetic sort of rippy, stringy thing is supposed to be. I love that thing/sound. And then you get to the beat, and I love it even more. Great percussion and details. I'm a sucker for handclaps, which he uses really subtly. I just love every little detail about this song.

I think my favorite track on the album is Permutations, the closer.  I've talked before about how I love a good opening track to an album, and a good closing track is important too. This is a great closing track. The only thing I don't like about it is that it ends a bit abruptly, then the album starts over with Look Away, which is a very different feel from this and doesn't really flow together well. But the song itself is fantastic.




It's also worth nothing that Lo-Fang apparently performed all the instruments on the album, which is pretty impressive to me considering that there seem to be a lot of them. There are a few songs on the album which are a bit weird to me. He does a cover of Boris, by BOY, a band I really like, and I think he does a great cover, but again, there's something weird about it to me. I also think it's weird that he has a cover of You're the One That I Want from Grease. Not what I would expect from this guy. But regardless, the album is great, and the more I listen the more I like it. So you should go listen to more. It seems a bit hard to find some of his stuff online, but it's all on Spotify. Or you can just buy it. It's worth it.

Sylvan Esso

I had a tough time deciding what to write about today. This week has been a bit all over the place. Some bad, some good. No pictures this time, sorry. Maybe next week.

I'm kind of bored at work, and kind of sick, and found out my great-aunt passed away, which obviously did not make me very happy. Especially considering she's always been my favorite and is basically like a third grandmother. And then later that same night I was watching Girls (*spoiler maybe?*) and I saw the episode where Hanna's grandma died, so that didn't make things any better. And there are other things about the whole situation which really pissed me off, but we don't have to go into those here. So that's no fun.

But a lot of good things have happened this week, too. I found out yesterday that I can move out of my hotel and into my apartment here in Germany next week, which is earlier than expected. I also just changed my weekend in London to a week in the UK cause I'll be there for work, too, which means now I get more time in London with friends and I don't have to pay for the plane ticket. Then I finally booked trips for all my upcoming long weekends, so now I have weekends planned in Copenhagen and Madrid to see friends, and Estonia to use the Lonely Planet I stole from my sister. And I finally started House of Cards and holy shit I can't believe that first episode!!!

I don't really know how I feel right now. I'm sure I'll figure it out. For now at least I have good music and will be seeing friends in Munich this weekend. And this week I have very good music.

I think the last time I got this excited about a new musical find was Lief Vollebekk, so it's been a couple of months. I've found some really good new stuff since then, but nothing that got me this as excited as he did, or as excited as Sylvan Esso, my find from this morning, did. Sylvan Esso only has three songs, and when I first started listening to Hey Mami this morning, I thought it was kind of cool. Then it got to about 1:30 and I was sold.




This is what I imagine Tune-yards would sound like if she was produced by Jai Paul. And that sounds like a dream come true to me. And in the same week that Tune-yards dropped the first single off her new album. Between Tune-yards, Lykke Li and Ray LaMontagne's new albums, May 6th is going to be a good day for music.

Anyway, I heard Hey Mami and loved it, so I listened to Play It Right, the other track off of Sylvan Esso's first single, which came out last year. And I was not let down at all. Again with the Jai Paul-esque goodness. I'm starting to think that this is my sound of 2014. Between artists like Banks, SOHN, Kwabs and now Sylvan Esso, who all kind of fit into this dark electro-pop kind of sound, it seems that some of the artists I'm most excited about this year are right in here.





Until about 3 minutes ago the only things I knew about Sylvan Esso were what I wrote above, and the fact that they've toured with Volcano Choir, and currently have tour dates with Wye Oak and Tune-yards, which makes me like them even more. In fact they have a date in Berlin with Tune-yards, which would be incredible to be at, but it's while I'm home in the States in May. But I'm bored at work and so I jumped on facebook on my phone to find out more (and because I wanted to know who produces their music. Turns out it's them). I found out the fun facts that they formed in North Carolina, and that they apparently have a self-titled full-length album which they self-released last year. But I can't find any of the other songs from it online. Luckily this album will be re-released by their label in May. Not sure if their last song that I can find, Coffee, is off the original release or a new song for the reissue or what. But it doesn't matter, cause I have to wait for the reissue anyway. At least for now I have these three songs, though.





These guys have just jumped up to almost the top of my list of most anticipated artists of 2014. They're still behind Banks, but I can't wait to hear more from Sylvan Esso.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones

I've been meaning to write something for a couple of weeks now, and I've just been putting it off. I don't know why. I have a bunch of music to share, but just never get around to it. And I guess I've had trouble thinking of things to write. I did have a great weekend last weekend, though, which got me thinking that I could just write about what I'm actually doing at the moment and try to include pictures, so maybe I'll talk about last weekend.

I came back to Germany last week for work. I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned before that when I come here I live in a tiny little town that's about an hour north of Munich. It's cute and all, but super boring. There's nothing to do here, and I know nobody. In fact I'm pretty sure there's nobody living in this town between the ages of 15 and 50. Maybe 40. Which means evenings are extremely boring and all I have to do is catch up on TV shows. I made it through True Detective this week, and now I finally will start House of Cards Season 2. I know I'm a month late, I don't want to talk about it. I'm not happy about this. I need to watch it.

Anyway, one of the benefits of being in this teensy tiny town is that I'm basically forced to leave and travel every weekend. I'd die of boredom if I stayed here. So normally I get a company car or get a ride down to Munich and hop on a plane and go anywhere. Last weekend, my first weekend back, I decided to head down to Slovenia, adding another country to the list. Overall Slovenia is nothing special. It's a nice country with a charming, little capital city, but nothing amazing scenery-wise. Some of the attractions in Slovenia were great, though, and quite unique.

Predjama Castle

One of my favourite things was this castle I went to that's built into the mouth of a huge cave, on top of a massive cave system. It's been continuously expanded since it was first built back in the 13th century, and it's most famous inhabitant was besieged for a year there, and managed to live comfortably because he would use the cave system to sneak out to nearby towns and get whatever he needed. Eventually he was killed when a servant betrayed him and signaled the people who were holding the siege that he had gone to the bathroom, at which point they shot a massive boulder from their catapult and crushed the bathroom with him in it. Shitty way to go (see what I did there? Couldn't help myself). It was pretty awesome.

Slovenia is also really tiny, so I managed to see about half the country in 48 hours. After the castle I headed south to the Adriatic Coast to see Piran, a really nice little town on a peninsula. It used to be part of the Venetian empire and is about 20 minutes from the Italian border, so it seems pretty Italian. In fact it's so close that I considered just popping into Italy for dinner on the way back, but I didn't want to have to pay highway tolls again. It's really different from the rest of the Slovenian towns and cities I saw, but I assume everything on the coast is. I spent a few hours exploring and actually could have been very happy just chilling there for the entire weekend eating Italian food.

On my way back to Germany on Sunday I made a stop in this town called Bled. I was told about it by a friend in Singapore last week, and then another friend mentioned it to me just before my trip, and I am very glad I went. The place was ridiculously beautiful. It's another small town, which is nothing special, I just drove through that part without even stopping, but it's the lake that the town sits on that's amazing. It's this lake up in the Alps with a tiny island in the middle that has an old church on it. Across the lake from the actual town are cliffs with a castle on top, so when you're on the far side of the lake looking back you have these ridiculous views of the snow covered Alps and the castle and the church, and it's all reflected in the lake, and it's amazing. I was there for like 30 minutes, just to walk around the lake a bit and take in the view, but it was still possibly the best thing I did in Slovenia.

Bled. Ridiculous. One of the most beautiful places I've probably ever been.

The drive was also pretty amazing. To get from Germany down to Ljubljana I had to drive through Austria, and it took me straight through the Alps. Despite the sun and warm(ish) weather, that country is still covered in snow. Like, a lot of it. So I was just driving through these incredible snow covered peaks. It makes it hard to concentrate on the road.

Seriously, I do not understand how I did not die on during this drive.

All in all it was a great weekend. Despite Slovenia itself being underwhelming and reminding me a lot of the Czech Republic, I had a great time. I'm not sure I'd go again, if I did it would just be for a weekend on the coast or in Bled, chilling, but I'm glad I went.

And now on to the music. There were actually a few bands I was considering talking about today, but it was kind of hard to choose. I haven't had any songs or artists who just jump out at me and really impress me lately, so nothing that I've felt I really need to come write a blog about to share with everyone. Which is why it's taken me two weeks. But there have been a few bands who put out new releases that I've been really impressed with overall. I had it narrowed down to 4 choices, those being Bear's Den, NO, Milagres and St. Paul & The Broken Bones. After chatting with a friend, I'm going with St. Paul & The Broken Bones. Which is actually a good thing, because while I've thought about writing about all 4 of these bands, St. Paul & The Broken Bones were the first one I thought of writing about since their newest release was the earliest.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones fit into that genre of white guys making throwback soul music. Think Mayer Hawthorne. Or even Amy Winehouse, now that I think of it. But I think they do it a lot better than most other people trying to do it (Amy Winehouse excluded). And there's a lot more rock to theirs, which I love. The Alabama band just put out their first album, Half the City, produced by one of the guys from Alabama Shakes, which should already be a good sign to you, and you can definitely hear it in the album. I heard Call Me, which I think is their first single, a couple months back. I tried to find more at the time, but sadly came up empty handed.





Since writing up to this point I finished my work day and came home, and have been listening to this album. And while they stick in my head as a throwback soul band, listening to it now I'm getting a lot more blues rock than I remember. Which is making me like the album even more. I did buy it as soon as it came out, so I've got their music to myself now, but surprisingly it is still hard to find their stuff online, hence the Spotify link, which I never really use. And It's actually really difficult to pick what song to share with you, cause the album is full of great tracks. So here's the one I'm listening to now, which is great, Broken Bones & Pocket Change.

 

You should still go listen to the other bands I mentioned before. They are all very good. Especially Milagres, cause I'm loving their new album. I won't say too much, though, cause they may be my next blog post. But think Wild Beasts. And for NO, think The National. And for Bear's Den, I guess think Mumford & Sons, except not. Much better. 

A bit of a mixed bag today

Last time I wrote a blog I had so much to share and talk about. Unfortunately now it all seems to have disappeared from my head. I'm bored at work and so I'm kind of forcing myself to write this blog in order to pass the time. But I can't remember any of the many things I wanted to share last time. I've still got music I want to share, but I honestly can't remember any of the stories I wanted to talk about.

So instead I guess I can talk about visitors, seeing as I have one at the moment. My friend Sarah, who I know from Beijing, is in town visiting. She actually lives in Taiwan now and had to make a visa run, so decided to come visit me. It worked out perfectly to since the weekend she had to do it is my only weekend in Singapore for a few months. Sarah's actually my first proper visitor in Singapore, and maybe my third or fourth in the entire time I've been in Asia. I've seen friends here in Singapore, but they've all been people passing through or here for other things, whereas Sarah came with the intent of visiting me and is the first person to actually stay with me, so she wins the prize for first visitor. Yay Sarah!

I would've thought after like 5 years total spent living in Asia I would have had more visitors by now. But, believe it or not, I had more visitors in my 15 months in Africa than I've had in 5 years in Asia. In Japan, my friend Elliot came to visit. Then once I moved to China my parents and my sister came, and my friend James came. Again, I did see other friends in both Japan and China, but those are really the only people that came with the express intention of seeing me, or that came and stayed with me.

In Africa, on the other hand, I had about 6 visitors in 15 months. Elliot came to visit, along with a couple friends from China. Otherwise it was mostly visitors by way of introduction. I found that a lot of people would put their friends in touch with me when they were coming to South Africa, and they inevitably ended up staying with me, which was great as they are now all my friends as well. And, as an added bonus, I've since been treated to both a Nando's meal (thanks Lula!) and delicious cocktails (thanks Wendy!) in return for my hospitality.

At first it seems a bit weird that I would have more visitors in Africa when Asia is so much more accessible and cheaper, especially coming from the US. After spending quite a bit of time thinking about it, it does kind of makes sense, though.  First, I think a lot of people kind of expect me to be in Asia forever, so they have plenty of time to visit (no comment on that...). But I think, more importantly, Americans don't tend to know as many people in Africa as they do in Asia. It seems like everyone knows someone in Asia. Hence me becoming the go-to introduction for anyone traveling to South Africa at the time. In fact, when I was moving there and asking around for introductions to anyone, only half of people that I was introduced to actually lived in SA. The others were in Botswana (close), Kenya (far) and Senegal (very far). Luckily I got to meet them all thanks to work travel, but I think it just reinforces the fact that connections in Africa are scarce.

The point of all this rambling is really to reinforce the fact that you should come visit me. Doesn't matter where, I promise it will be fun. Even if we haven't spoken in years, get in touch if you're in the area. I'm pretty shameless about randomly messaging people I haven't spoken to in years if I'm nearby because my lifestyle would not really allow it to be any other way. So I don't mind at all if you do the same. I kind of like it.

For starting out the blog not being able to think of what to write about, I think I've done quite well. And hopefully I can do quite well with the music, too. Last time I wrote there were 3 songs by 3 different artists/groups that were my songs of the moment. I wanted to share them all but didn't because I had other important music to share. But this time I will share those songs, which should make for a pretty eclectic selection.

The first was my new favourite song about 2 weeks ago. I was listening to it a lot. It's Unkinder (A Tougher Love) by THUMPERS, by the way. I'd actually heard it and starred it on Spotify a while back, but then they released their album so it was showing up again online and I heard it again and kept listening over and over. It's fun. It's very fun. It makes me want to dance around in my office (or wherever I happen to be). THUMPERS debut album, Galore, is also not bad, but this is by far the best song on it.





Next we're moving into a very different style of music with Paper Bird. This Colorado group has like 7 vocalists or something ridiculous like that. I ended up buying their newest album, Rooms, just on the strength of As I Am, the opening track and first single off the album. Again, there was a lot of this song on repeat. Great harmonies, great electric guitar, great melody, great percussion. Lots of good things about it. And it just makes me happy.





And last, I'm switching it up again with Jamestown Revival, an LA-by-way-of-Texas bluegrass/folk rock duo. Just like with Paper Bird, I heard one song by these guys and wanted more and more. They just put out their debut album, Utah. I've actually heard quite a few bands like these guys in the last week or two, but these guys do it better than most, in my opinion. I like most songs about California, and California (Cast Iron Soul) is no exception. Other than the fact that I like it more than most other songs about California, anyway.

Alright, I think that's all I've got for you for now. Except for my public service announcement, which is that Little Dragon has put out a new single (Klapp Klapp) and is releaseing a new album (Nabuma Rubberband) later this year. I will be very surprised (and even more disappointed) if this album isn't in my top 10 this year. Go pre-order, peoples.

Leif Vollebekk

It's been a couple weeks since the last blog, and will probably be a couple more before the next one since I've been traveling. Which makes this tough, cause I've actually got lots of things to talk about and lots of good new music to share. But I guess the most appropriate thing to do would be to work through things chronologically, which means starting with the blog about the Australia trip.

Pretty much all you need to know is that after 10 days in Australia and two failed attempts, on my last day there we finally found kangaroos and I got to play with them. End of blog.

Ok, not actually end of blog, but it was probably the high point of the trip. One of the high points of my life up to now, in fact. For some reason it was even more exciting than playing with cheetahs or baby lions. Maybe because I know/think a kangaroo won't maul me. And I got to feed them, which was great. One of them was slobbery like a dog, and one of them kept accidentally nibbling my hand while she tried to get the food out of my palm. She was my favorite.

I did also eat kangaroo a couple of times. Not my first time eating kangaroo, but my first time eating it in Australia, so that was also a goal of the trip. Sadly I learned it is illegal to eat koalas, but I wanted to do that too. A friend suggested I post a before/after picture on instagram of the kangaroos I played with and a kangaroo steak I ate a few days prior, which would have been fantastic, but I try to limit my instagrams to two a day, except in amazingly fun circumstances. But just know that it was considered and would have been great and accurately reflected my love of all living things, both in their playful and edible forms.

Other than that, the rest of the trip was great. A quick day-by-day run down: explore Melbourne, music festival, wine tour, best Chinese food outside China, work/opera, work/fancy dinner, explore Sydney, Great Ocean Road (x2 days), play with animals. So that pretty much accounts for everything, except that one day after the wine tour where I cannot, for the life of me, remember what we did. And I swear it wasn't because of the wine. We didn't even get drunk, though that did not stop the guy at the 2nd winery from thinking I was an alcoholic and pouring me less wine than everyone else.

The highlight (other than kangaroos) was actually seeing friends, though. I had a friend who is currently funemployed join me from Tokyo, and we visited with China/Japan friends who are from Australia, which was wonderful. A couple of them I hadn't seen in a long time, and one of them (Peter) I had seen pretty recently, but it was still great to see him again. The man's a legend. We give him a lot of shit for being really old, even though he's not that much older than all of us were when we got to JET, but he definitely plays into the part. We do, of course, say it with love. After all, rare is the atheist who will become an online ordained minister in order to fly halfway across the world and officiate the wedding of two good friends. Also, Peter, you better be reading this, because you need help with music, as you mentioned to us. The "World Wide Web" is a great place to find out what's "hip" with the "youths." If you're able to figure out how to connect your screen to your typewriter, that is. Try using the VHS.

Melbourne is where we spent most of our time, and it's a great city and apparently one of the most livable cities in the world. To be honest, though, I might have preferred Sydney. Melbourne is great, and pretty much all the Aussies I know are from there (as is Hiatus Kaiyote, who are incredible and make me want to live there just so I can be their friends and see them live all the time), but Sydney is a beautiful city. And the weather is really nice. And they have boats as public transport, which to me is a very novel thing and a great way to see the city. Anyway, I'm looking forward to going back. I'd like to see more of Australia, and my friends there, so I'll have to make it happen sooner rather than later.

Music is another thing I've had trouble deciding what to share. I bought this album right before I left and I basically listened to nothing else the entire time in Australia, so that was the obvious choice. But since then I've found a bunch of songs that I love, so I want to share them with you as well. But again, we're going to work through these blogs/my life chronologically, which means you get some Leif Vollebekk today. Which you will be very happy about, I hope, because he's kind of amazing. Even though he's Canadian, he's got the whole Americana Folk Rock thing down. He just released his second album, North Americana, and I can't stop listening. I heard the first single, When the Subway Come Above the Ground, on one of the sites I check for music, and about a minute in I knew I needed more.





Not all of the album is folk rock like that song, though. A lot of it is acoustic folk, but done to perfection. The album actually kind of reminds me of Laura Marling's album from last year, which bodes well for Leif Vollebekk because that album was amazing and one of my favorites of the year last year. In fact, I'm pretty sure this album is the first release of 2014 that's going to make it into my top 10 for this year. Anyway, he does the folk/blues thing really well too. I was actually reading on his facebook or website or something about the new album, and he was talking about how it was 4 years in the making, and there was a quote that I thought summed the album up really well and made me like it even more. It was something along the lines of how he's given four years of his life to this album and put everything he has into it, and now he's got nothing left, nothing but this album. And luckily for us he's sharing it. Cairo Blues, which is probably my favorite acoustic track on the album, definitely let's you feel it.





So here's a somewhat embarrassing confession for those of you who have read to the end of the blog. I love American Idol. It's kind of my guilty pleasure. I have never purchased any music by any of the contestants, and I think they generally make terrible music, but I love the show and it turns out some amazing singers. I often hear songs and think about how great it would be if someone performed them and how if I were a judge and someone performed one of the songs I had in mind, I would gain a lot of respect for them as an artist. And I am judging, so it still applies, it just makes no difference to the outcome of the show. The new season is currently in auditions (at least that's as far as I've watched. I need to catch up.), and though I know it won't happen, I really, really, really want someone to come in for their audition and perform Cairo Blues, to which the judges would be blown away and talk about what an amazing song it is and how this contestant is a real artist and someone to watch, etc. This would make me happy.

MTNS

I bought this album by Wild Cub the other day. I wasn't sure I was going to, but then I realized that I'd listened to it like 5 times in 3 days on Spotify, so I figured that meant I liked it enough to buy it. And there are some great tracks on there. I'd only been listening to it on my computer at work, which didn't stop me from loving the song Thunder Clatter. But then this morning I listened to it on my iPod for the first time with my headphones, and I liked it even more. I love that. I love listening to a song I love with great headphones and hearing all these details I never noticed before and loving it even more. Same thing happened with Alt-J. Anyway here's the track. Listen on your computer, listen on headphones, listen wherever you want. It's a great track all around.





Ok, now that my random thought of the morning is out of the way, I can actually write the blog I intended to. Chinese New Year starts tonight, which means I get to go home early. Which is great, cause I haven't packed yet and I leave tonight for Australia! First time going. Well, technically I've been before. I have the stamp in my passport. But it's only because I missed a connecting flight in Sydney a couple years ago and had to clear customs to buy a new one, so I actually only stayed in the airport for like 3 hours. But I digress. I'm going to Australia tonight, and I'm really excited. Like, really fucking excited. I haven't been this excited to go somewhere in a while.

I've been traveling a lot for work over the last few years, but it was really only when I moved to Africa that it really got crazy. I spent 200 days out of South Africa in 2012. And with about 250 work days in a year, that is a significant amount of time. But the problem with traveling in Africa was that I was always going to capital cities, and an African city is an African city. It generally doesn't matter which one you're in, they're all more or less the same. And there generally isn't that much to do in African cities. Most of the good stuff is out in the bush, which I generally didn't have time for. Add to this the fact that a lot of these cities are not exactly safe to be walking around alone, and the fact that I was generally outside the city center since construction machinery requires a lot of space which is hard to come by and expensive inside a city.

That's not to say that all African capitals are no fun, I do enjoy some. Maputo, Kigali, Addis Ababa, Antananarivo, Bamako - there are some good cities. But generally, I knew that traveling in Africa meant lots of time to sit alone in my hotel room. I could've gone to hotel bars, but most of the other business travelers, which is what my hotels were generally filled with, were guys in their 50s and 60s and they came in groups. I did not.

It got to a point where I was traveling so much with nothing to do, that I was no longer excited about traveling. I even had a couple friends come visit and we went to Madagascar for like 10 days, which was one of my top countries in the world to visit. And I wasn't excited. It was like I'd become trained to not get excited about travel, even though it wasn't for work. We had a great trip, but going into it I felt nothing. I made it to over 25 countries in Africa, and most of them I didn't really care about being in. Luckily that is no longer the case, I'm starting to realize. I think a lot of it has to do with being back in Asia and traveling to places where I don't have to sit alone in a hotel room. There are actually things to do, and I can get out and walk around. And I have friends in a lot of the places I'm visiting, which was not generally the case in Africa.

With Australia, I'm definitely excited about the people I'll be seeing. A couple Japan friends, a couple China friends. And my friend Rei is coming down from Tokyo to spend the week, since she's currently funemployed. This will actually make 4 continents that we've been on together, which means she now needs to come visit me in Europe, too. In fact, she's probably sitting at the airport in Kuala Lumpur right now on her way. I'm sitting at the office, bored. Thank God for that early finish.

I'm also very excited about activities. I generally don't really look into what to do in a place until I'm on the way there, but since I'm not so busy I've been trying to figure stuff out. Which means we've already got plenty of stuff planned. Laneway Music Festival (again) this Saturday, wine tour on Monday, performance at the Sydney Opera House next week, mini road trip to the 12 Apostles... It's gonna be good times.

Since I'm headed to Australia, I might as well share some Australian music. I've heard a fair bit, in no small part thanks to one of the blogs I like having a section dedicated to Australian music. I found this band MTNS a couple weeks ago. It was actually not through the aforementioned Australian music section of that blog, but through another site I check. Anyway, the first song I heard was Lost Track of Time, which is a fantastic song.




I've been listening to a lot of this kind of chilled-out music lately. Artists in the vein of James Blake, mixing pop and electronics and other weird sounds. Think Banks (who is probably my favourite new artist of the year so far. In addition to the amazing track in my blog, you should definitely also listen to Change. I'm a bit obsessed. And buy her debut London EP.). I actually was unsure at first if it was a male or female vocalist. Well, that's not completely true. When I first heard Lost Track of Time, I was sure it was a woman. Then I heard this next song, Crave, and started to have my doubts.




I eventually had to look it up. It's a man. I do really like his voice, though, especially on the chorus of Crave. These guys currently have one EP out, Salvage. Careful not to listen to the other MTNS you might find, because it's horrible punk rock and will leave you very disappointed if these guys are who you're looking for.