“And nothing can compare, to when you roll the dice and swear your love’s for me”
Loving someone requires a certain amount of faith, there are no guarantees. There is always a risk, always a gamble involved when you choose to love someone completely – but when you both decide that the reward and journey of trying to love each other outweighs the risk of it not working, when you both decide to roll the dice, to go all in…well, ain’t that a beautiful thing? Finlay Quaye is right, nothing can compare.
I can’t say that I’ve been all the way in on the X-FactorNZ ride, but I am all the way in with the Melanie Blatt fan-club. She always seemed the coolest/most bad-ass member of the All Saints – though they all look pretty rad, let’s be honest – and I’m sure she’d be great to get on the piss with. I saw the episode where she was choosing the final group contestants, and it looked like she was trying so hard to not laugh out loud the whole time, it was great. After watching last nights show, I started reminiscing with the bf about how the All Saints were cooler than other ‘girl’ groups, they were more adult, had more attitude, and had more babes in the group. We also debated our all-time favourite All Saints song. For me, it’s ‘Never Ever’, from the spoken intro which ties into the end of the song when Shaznay sings with gusto ‘you can tell me to my face, you can tell me on the phone, oooooh, you can write it in a letter babe, cos I really need to know!” This song has so many bridges and hooks, it was impossible for it to not succeed. EDIT: The bf has just pointed out that while ‘I Know Where It’s At’ is a good first single, ‘Never Ever’ is actually his fave too. ‘Pure Shores’ of course is up there, but doesn’t quite hold the same nostalgia for me as ‘Never Ever’, though I know for a lot of people, probably a bit younger than I, it will. ‘Booty Call’ is fun and funny, so I had to add it in there, and I’ve always thought ‘Black Coffee’ was great and a cleverly written song. So, now that I’ve gone down All Saints memory lane, why don’t you too… (P.S How good a song writer is Shaznay Lewis, ay?)
“Sometimes vocabulary runs through my head, the alphabet runs right from A to Zed, conversations, hesitations in my mind, you got my conscience asking questions that I can’t find…”
Hello lovelies. I’ve been asked to give away two single tickets to Movement Festival.
Featuring NAS, CHIDDY BANG, JOEY BADA$$, IGGY AZALEA, HOME BREW, DAVID DALLAS & DJ SIRVERE.
I’d be hoping that you’ve gotten in early and bought your tickets already, but I also know it’s nice to get things for free, so I’m happy to accomodate a couple of you lucky readers too
The first giveaway is through instagram (find me here : @lanisays)
To enter, just upload a picture of the artist or artists you most want to see most at Movement Fest to instagram + tag me @lanisays + @movementfestnz in the pic, and there you have it – you’re in the draw to win. You have until 5PM, Monday 15th to enter.
The second giveaway will be done through my facebook page and I shall announce the details of that once I’ve announced the winner of the first ticket. So, go on then, get to grammin’!!
Download 41′smixtape and bump it all weekend, play it at your house party, play it on the way to the beach, play it on the way to Hitch, play it at home by yourself and when Monday comes, play it on the way to work, etc.
This year has been pretty struggletastic for me so far, I just can’t seem to get into the swing of things. What I have been getting into the swing of so hard though is this ‘Solange – Losing You’ song. The song, the video, the fashion, it’s all round brilliant, innit? It’s also been the song that keeps giving because, as a kind of flow on effect of this discovery, I’ve re-discovered an old favourite and been reminded of a very cool new artist and song.
The new discovery: I think it was from deidah last year that I first heard LION BABE’s – Treat Me Like Fire. When I clicked on the video and the first thing I saw was some chick roaring at me I thought, ‘oh geez, what is this shit?’ But then the song began, and I thought, wow this is great. And then I forgot all about it. Lucky for me, Solange reminded me of it again on her twitter. Just give it a listen, she’s sexy as and has a voice like Erykah Badu. You’re welcome.
My personality seems to always naturally lean towards the cynical, negative, sarcastic. It’s a cop out, because it’s easy to feel like that. I wanted to counter that by sharing some nice, uplifting, lovely and cheerful songs. Florence & The Machine’s – Shake It Out, is actually pretty dark but the sentiment, and overall feeling is one of hope, overcoming and letting go.
John Legend’s ‘Save Room’ is beautiful and soothing, The Shapeshifters – ‘Lola’s Theme’ is fun and triumphant (shot Shirl) and I thought I’d throw in Luther Vandross – ‘Never Too Much’ for good measure.
K.One is, for the most part, based in Auckland, but if you follow him on twitter or instagram, you’ll soon find that his heart stays firmly placed with his hometown, Masterton. Or, you know, you could just have a read of what’s been permanently etched into his knuckles…being away from home, that’s that shit he don’t like. While he’s back in M.A, he’s been kind enough to agree to take us all on a virtual tour of his hood.
What the Illegal Musik rapper has provided is exactly what I envisioned the ‘Good in Your Hood’ series to be all about. I wanted it to give an insight, history and guide into a town or hood that only a proud local can give. K.One, a.k.a Kaleb Vitale, has done exactly that, and as a result, we also get a bit of an insight into his life. Cool story aye bro? Yes, yes it is my bro.
So, enough chit chat, here is the second ever installment in the ‘What’s Good In Your Hood’ series – K.One’s Masterton :
‘Double Bridges’ :
“Masterton is famous for it’s long, hot and dry summers. The closest beach is 40 minutes away so hitting one of the nearby rivers is almost an everyday thing. 10km north of town is a spot called “Double Bridges” (Getting it’s name from the two bridges 500m up stream from the swimming hole) It still buzzes me out that we would bike all the way out there when we were young. Once we were old enough to have a license there was always that dude we knew with a car who would be ‘persuaded’ to drive us out there.”
I’ve discovered some pretty rad videos this week, some that are lovely and sweet, others that had me dying with laughter. They’ve probably been doing the rounds for awhile now, but I thought I’d share em just in case you haven’t seen them yet – shout outs Rufus & the bf for these :
Driving school for dogs, whaaaat? It took me years to learn how to drive, and these dogs did it in 8 weeks. Wtf. Is dis real?
DMX rapping Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer – I smiled all the way through this. There needs to be a DMX Christmas Album ASAP. I LOL’d at one of the comments that suggested the title be ‘And then there was Xmas’
This is a beautifully shot video of local video director and photographer Tom Gould (who has directed Home Brew, David Dallas and Aaradhna vids) talking about his roots in graffiti art and hip-hop culture and his own personal connection with the Air Force 1 sneaker.
And this vid of David Dallas and Jordache killing it in the USA makes me very proud
This Trinidad James vid and his steeze rules hard. And how bout that lil puppy!!!!!!!!
