Hi everyone,

When brendan first invited me to contribute to this blog, I doubted there was anything new that I could add (largely given that for the most part I just make my own playlists from Zeke’s music and he is already a good sharer). But, then I re-read brendan’s blurb and realised newness is not so much the point of all this, but rather, nowness – and in particular, those songs that you can not get out of your head. I am definitely one of those people that totally gets noises (its not just music – I think I hear my cell-phone ring all the time when it's not) stuck in their head; while I often have one song playing over and over on repeat at any given time, more commonly, its one single verse, or one beat of a song. Right now, it’s a single word; the opening word of the royal thai anthem – a rather haunting and beautiful “Kaww-weee” sung by what sounds like an eight year-old girl. I can’t stop singing it! This anthem is played at the start of every movie screening, along with a really emotive video; everyone stands, to not, is total disrespect of the king and can lead to criminal charges. The video itself is pretty wild - I can’t really say more without the threat of lèse majesté charges – but check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJiqEJPlznA

Given that I can not hear number one, without thinking of Bangkok, I’ve kind of created my own additional theme for songs number two and three (I’m sticking with the three rule for now, I like things in threes). They are also both songs that every time I hear, I can not but think of the other two cities that we have lived in since leaving Auckland. And since, at the time we lived there, I could not get them out of my head, I figure they qualify for some kind of retroactive/retrospective nowness.

Song number two/NYC is “New York I Love You” by LCD Soundsystem. While I love it, this song sounds rather depressing and doesn’t really reflect the tone of my time in NYC; but the police state they sing of was one of the most discussed issues of our time there and this song was on everyone’s repeat.

Song number three/Colombo is “Paper Planes” by MIA. Not quite as ubiquitous in Colombo as song number two was in NYC (I think we were pretty much the only people in Sri Lanka actually playing this at the time - Sri Lankans are into bollywood and don’t know who MIA is) but “If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name” was totally on my mind-repeat.

I went with youtube postings; the sound is not so good but the king-love in particular is best seen as well as heard….

X jazz.