Paris is Burning // The Launch Party

With our launch party coming up in a few weeks at La Maison (aka a big empty warehouse somewhere in Auckland), we thought we'd share some of our favourite tracks of the moment. Hopefully it'll get you in the mood for Paris is Burning on July 17th. In general it's got a Saturday-French-Housey-Disco vibe to fire you up for  our little soiree. We are super f*cking excited and we have some chic sponsors to release this week which will reaffirm the type of party we are going to lay down. Oui Oui.

As well as Paris is Burning's Cam Robertson and moi, we've got Dangerous Dan Single of Ksubi fame, who will no doubt be bringing his hurricane style of hedonism. Joining him from Sydney will be MC Double D (ex Sneaky) who knows how to keep a party going. Its pretty much like a good ol' Hugo's Sunday (just in NZ!), with a cocktail of epic music, a great venue and the right people, mark this night as a must do!

Paris is Burning // The Launch Party
Saturday 17th July

La Maison, Britomart Auckland

Plus stream the Paris is Burning radio show on Saturday nights and RSVP to the party.

Cam Robertson's mix for the party is here (right click to download). Enjoy!

There is nothing bigger than this...

Featuring Kobe, R-Fed and Homer, this Nike TVC for the World Cup is the business. It captures the excitement, does justice to the weight on the players shoulders and fires us up for the sporting event that is unrivalled by any other.

I'd love to see this in the cinema - but for now, enjoy.

You have to read: Monocle

With internet and mobile web usage now the social norm, it's an arduous task for any traditional print media companies to survive. Over the past couple of years, with the industry in flux, we've seen Rupert Murdoch's News Limited looking to charge users for online content, new business models being created like 'freemium' and a number of newspapers and magazines down-sizing and falling over. Just this year we've also seen the launch of the Newspaper killer... the iPad, which has seen global powerhouse magazines rushing to produce their content for this new platform. So is print dead?

With all of this in mind, I still believe wholeheartedly, there is a place for quality print. Traditional retail still exists in the proliferation of e-commerce, because of two key drivers - proximity (or convenience) and the shopping experience. Much like the traditional retail offering needs to provide the customer with an experience to out-do an online shopping transaction if it wants to compete, so does a magazine. One of my favourites is the truly international Monocle. 

Monocle's content is sophisticated, wordly, diverse and so credible and their design conscious aesthetic rewards you instantly for picking up a physical copy. Reading about great design, architecture or fashion is made much more of an experience if the way in which you're consuming the content reinforces the design beliefs. It's rather ironic then that I mention this in my blog, but I really wanted to draw attention to the fact we recently brought a Monocle writer out for the launch of the new Air New Zealand 777-300's.

This has in turn led to Monocle picking up on other innovative Kiwi design triumphs, which is great for NZ's profile as a place where world class design lives. As I mentioned Monocle picked up our story, but also cottoned on to my mate Scrap Wall's uber cool new boxer shorts 'Confidentials'. Nice one Scrap.

Obviously, they were fortunate enough to get to my favourite Auckland store naming the The Department Store' as one of the 25 Retail Stars. No mean feat.

So here's to magazines such as Monocle that are synonymous with quality and portray an elegant sophistication in their aesthetics, to keeping print magazines alive. Keep an eye out for Master Mouse Patrol which launches this week too. Editor Sam will swear by the same sky high quality ethos as Monocle, but will have a more street level approach to cool. And finally let's also hope Kiwi design can keep taking on the world so we can keep picking up influential international reads and feel proud.

You wanted a hit

James Murphy and co are back with another masterpiece. If you thought it would be tough to beat Sound of Silver especially the timeless 'All my friends', which is also one of my top ten tracks of the last decade and the hauntingly beautiful 'Someone great', then you would not be alone.

Whether or not This is happening, can even be in the same league as it's predecessor is a question in itself. Much like their release of 'North American scum' as the opening single on Sound of Silver, they have gone out with a rockier, heavier single in 'Drunk girls' to introduce us to what Murphy himself describes as their best (and apparently last, fuck it) album yet.

'Drunk girs' the only track under 7 minutes, is therefore the only radio friendly single and like North American Scum, doesn't grab me, instead it's the 8 minute, building epic 'Dance yourself clean' that is on repeat on my iPod. You want to listen to this from start to finish. Loud. Other tracks of note include the ironic 'You wanted a hit', which as self deprecating as it is, probably sums up the New Yorkers outlook that has seen them been the face of the DFA label for almost a decade.

This album will get remixed to death this year, but fellow DFA darlings Holy Ghost is an early contender for my favourite re-rub, (see below) but watch this space.

Lcd Soundsystem - This is happening is out May 17th



Download: LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrself Clean
Download: LCD Soundsystem - You wanted a hit

Download: LCD Soundsystem - Drunk Girls - Holy Ghost

M.I.A - Born Free?

Sri Lankan British indie gangstar M.I.A is back with her new single. Although the actual track doesn't take me like Paper Planes or much of her earlier stuff, for that matter, the video is worth a watch. From Romain Gavras, the director who produced a similar uncomfortably real look at Paris youth gangs in Justice's Stress comes another doco style clip. This one perhaps doesn't grab me like Stress, but at least provokes some thought, unlike 99% of other video's being produced today.

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

It's small and it's white

No, I'm not talking about some of Colombia's finest, but one of New Zealand's latest coffee companies to release their fair trade organic coffee. I haven't had the chance to try any yet, but let's just hope that Eight thirty's coffee tastes as good as their sense of humour. The sleek, minimal design of their packaging also gets a tick from me. So with all of the ingredients for a product launch in 2010 we will probably see Eight Thirty most mornings very soon.

Summer (or Winter) Love

The New Zealand autumn is always a good time of year... for music that is. Not for the fact it is slowly getting colder by the day, Sav is being replaced by Pinot, morning runs for the gym and benders for DVD's. The Northern Hemisphere Spring produces a shit load of great new music, all ready for the European / US summer, from Winter Music conference in Miami, SXSW in Austin to Coachella in the US desert, all the hot new bands, step up to the plate. Who is going to be the next Florence, the new Passion Pit and so on.

Well I'm going to pick a few now, that will be on everyones lips this summer.. err winter. You get the drift.

Two Door Cinema Club are a Northern Island three piece signed to french purveyors of cool Kitsune and there indie pop, has summer roadies written all over it.  The picks of their debut are the infectous Something good can work and What you know and the two re-works below are the pic of the remixes so far, and there are a few.

Download: Two door cinema club - Something good can work (The twelves remix)

Download: Two door cinema club - What you know (Redlight remix)

Flight Facilites hailing from Australia, have some how managed to bring back what a year or two ago I would have said was impossible through their Crave you. This French 90's house inspired track is already number 1 on beatport and will no doubt start a the revival of a softer dance sound. Giselle's vocals on are break taking and when you hear this, you are transported to late Friday night.

Download: Flight Facilities - Crave You, featuring Giselle (version 2)

Miami Horror are well known to most Sydney and Melbourne kids, however the lads are just starting to make waves internationally. Their indie electro sound is much like Modular darlings Cut Copy and they will rip it up when here for Deep, hard and funky. Let's hope we see the full band back here soon, which just quietly, I know we will.

Download: Miami Horror - Sometimes (Shazam remix)

I don't know much about Thieves of Aon, yet. However, I do know that they are Melbourne based, and sound like a cross between fellow Victorians Miami Horror and the best live band in the world right now French pop stars Phoenix. That is pretty big call but if I'm right it's a winning formula, so my pick is you will here more from these guys, soon. Fact.

Download: Theives of Aon - Eskimo