A Return to: Donovan

I was first introduced to pop music by my mother. My earliest memories are of travelling back from kindergarten singing along to Tom Petty, Peter Paul & Mary, Bob Dylan and Donovan. It was the staple music of my early childhood before I got into Aqua, and then alternative rock in my early teens.

But on my eighteenth birthday, my mother guided me back to the music I first grew up on by gifting me a turntable and allowing me to pillage her record collection. I took lots of material which have since become some of my favourite records including Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Songs of Leonard Cohen, Bookends, and what turned out to be the record which will forever be the closest to my heart, Donovan's Universal Soldier.

I knew the title track well before the first listen. It was originally written by Buffy Saint Marie, but Donovan's version became an infamous protest song during the Vietnam war. It is a track which suggests that the quintessential qualities of mankind are in fact universal, and cannot be separated by race or political allegiances, but the genius of the song resides in the simplicity of it. It is Donovan alone with guitar, harmless, subtle, peaceful. One is forced to listen to the lyrics and thus the message by Donovan's endearing charm and openess. The record itself was old. It cracked and hissed. My mum warned me of how vinyl 'doesn't have the same quality of a CD yaknow'. But I didn't care. This is what I loved about it. It taught me right from the very first track of how music, authentic music, could transport your mind to different times, and into different ways of thinking.

I liked 'Universal Soldier', but the real gems were hiding on Side B. The interlude is concluded with 'Catch the Wind', another track I knew from my childhood, but it seemed I never paid enough attention to it. Here is an exhibition of Donovan the poet. It is a love song which may be deemed cliche by today's taste, but with the vinyl hissing and the thought of the folk movement of the early sixties in my mind the lines "When sundown pales the sky/I want to hid a while/behind your smile/and everywhere I look/your eyes I find" were magical.

But what truly hooked me on the record was the third to last track ''Ballad of a Crystal Man''. It seemed to mash the protest and the poetry into one truly beautiful organism. I always thought of Donovan as a quirky, gypsy minded sort of fellow. I didn't know he wrote music this gorgeous. A simple harmonica note hanging, the picking of a sweet guitar melody, Donovan's earnest lyrics, my imagination. "Your thoughts are of harlequin, your speech is of quick silver/I read your faces like a poem, kaleidoscope of hate-work ... Vietnam your latest game, you're playing with your blackest queen/Damn your souls and curse your grins I stand here with a fading dream".

After this song I didn't stop listening to Donovan for a year and a half.

I knicked more Donovan from my mothers collection. I read his biography. I researched the folk movement, and the Vietnam War. I even started to dress like him.

Initially his most accessible music for me was anything that which resembled Ballad of a Crystal Man: gentle, sweet, earnest and ultimately futile. I found the 'Ballad of Geraldine' and 'Belated Forgiveness Plea' which fit this mould wonderfully. I found 'Cecila of the Seals', a rhythmic protest song against the mindless slaughter by those who hunt the precious creatures of the world. There was 'Ramblin' Boy', a song I religiously listened to every night on my walk home from work, and every day at university. And what I loved most was that no matter how odd or dated any song initially appeared, I would always end up persuaded by him. There are gems hiding in every crack of his discography.

He was my artist of 2006, above any other. At the same time I was exploring the new sonic evolutions of music Donovan kept me grounded and taught me the basics. More than that, he has helped me through practically every single drama and personal crisis since, and I love to let my commitment to him well known. I received several vinyl records of his for my 21st last year, including a new copy of Universal Soldier (the vinyl version of 'Catch the Wind' has a beautifully subtle string arrangement that the CD versions lack). So now, I keep one copy near my record player. The second is on the wall above my desk, for everyone to see.

I figure I owe him that much.

A Return to: The Shins

Now cliched as the typical 'indie band', The Shins are second in the series of my return to the music that I grew up with.

Lower Hutt was a wonderful place to grow up, but the suburbs didn't exactly teem with musical diversity. Hutt High's music taste (for the most part) didn't stretch far past the Foo Fighters, Metallica, Muse and Nirvana. This wasn't entirely our - or anybodies - fault. There were never any gigs in Lower Hutt, and we seldom ventured into the city to see bands since by the time they finished there would be no way for us to get home again without a $60 taxi fee. This prevention from discovering new bands, along with the 'download industry' still finding it's legs again after the stuttering Napster debacle meant that our only real means of spreading our wings to new musical terrority was Channel Z, and each other.

So I, along with the general mass of alternative enthusiasts stumbled upon the Shins through Zach Braffs 2004 indie wet-dream Garden State. I was more taken by the inherent idealism of the film more than the soundtrack, but the more I returned to Garden State the more the music dominated me. Through Braff I discovered Thievery Corporation, Zero 7, Iron & Wine, and (of course) the Shins.

I suppose my take of them was the same as everybody who first hears them: the bizzare melodies; the beautiful, timeless Simon-&-Garfunkelesque harmonies; the cryptic poetry and raw unfinished sound. I saw them live for the first time at the Vic Orientation in 2005 and was left so dazzled I immediately went out and bought their first album, and then there second a month later in Palmeston North. Anyone in my family can vouch for how absolutely mad I was for the band. For my eighteenth birthday my Mum bought me a brilliant novel, I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb. Every night I would put both Shins albums into my CD changer and read from the first song on Oh, Inverted World (namely, Caring is Creepy) until the last on Chutes Too Narrow (those to come). I did this religiously until I had finished the thousand page marathon, which with my reading speed took a delightfully long time.

What I loved about the band was the sheer originality and personality. They could thrash their guitars around (So Says I), and then tilt their heads in bemusement (Saint Simon), and then lull you gently to sleep at the days end. They seemed to cover everything I loved in music at that point.

But their larger-than-life impression came more from the band themselves. I began to notice links between the Shins and other bands. The Shins covered a Postal Service song (We Will Become Silhouettes) as did Iron & Wine (Such Great Heights), 50% of the Postal Service was the singer from Death Cab for Cutie, and hold on, the Shins covered Iron and Wine as well... and holy shit, thats Iron & Wine singing New Slang with the Shins! This is a community!

You can see, The Shins were my education and induction into the world of lo-fi (and even the sometimes incestuous nature) indie music. There were others at my school who had the same experience but with different sources, and it was fucking wonderful to begin discussing Pinback and the Coral with people I'd barely talked to before. But my friend Giselle and I (secretly) saw ourselves as the true Shins believers... or so I remember.

In 2007 my dreams came true, and on January 29th the third Shins album was released. I had just come back from seeing the Vines, Violent Femmes and a stellar Muse set at Big Day Out, and a package was waiting for me in the mail box. I freakin love the internet sometimes. The Shins latest release to date Wincing the Night Away (a referrence to James Mercers crippling insomnia) is a step forward from their first two albums. An extra guitarist, and near over-use of electronic beats are two of the signature changes. But I think the main difference in sound is how the band hold themselves. The shoulders were back, and the head upright compared to their debut and sophomores nervous, weedy, cute indie kid lack of confidence.

The closest the album slipped to their earlier work was on the second track, Australia. The bouncing rhythm and chirpy vocals seemed to be the giggle from a soldier at arms struggling to keep a straight face.

But the central idea of the album was pinned down by the lead single, Phantom Limb.

...But then I went to Vic House and got really into hardcore for a couple of years.

But I wouldnt've if it wasn't for the Shins. They were my introduction to multiple new worlds of music. After my fascination with them died down I experimented with post-punk (new and original), funk, soul, psychobilly, screamo, synth-pop, post-rock, ambient-rock and lots of gentle singer-songwriter stuff by the likes of Antony and the Johnsons, Elliot Smith, Jeff Buckley and Damien Rice.

I still don't listen to them much anymore. I really thrashed that third album to death. But I listened to all of their albums and EPs in succession yesterday and remembered why I love them so much. And I know there will be a time when I can listen to them again constantly. Because, I really owe them so much.

Like This? Try This:

• Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
• The Books - Lemon of Pink
• Flake Music - When You Land Here It's Time to Return
• Handsome Furs - Face Control
• Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
• Cold War Kids - Robbers and Cowards
• The Decemberists - Picaresque
• The Dresden Dolls - The Dresden Dolls

A Return to: Sigur Ros

It's been over eight months since I last listened to Sigur Ros. I first discovered them in 2006 through a medium which delivered to me most of my most beloved bands to date: Camilla's Intellectual Property hour on C4. Yaknow, back when C4 actually produced some quality programming.

It was the video for Glosoli. To understate the experience, it had an impact: the concept, the sound, the imagery and ideas all struck with an such an originality. I had always thought such imagination was strictly contained within the realm of Classical music and Opera. I had my introduction to pop music mostly through 1990s grunge - and had little knowledge of 70s and 80s avant-garde experimental music and 21st century indie - so was rightly baffled by what pop was now gifting me. It was gorgeousness on a level I dared not think possible.

I always knew that pop could be fucking awesome, it could be moving and inspriational, it could be simply fun... but I had never even imagined it could be so beautiful. I suppose the Arcade Fire's debut Funeral first taught me this lesson, but that was a rock album still which for the most part kept within the limits of the modern song structure. Sigur Ros seemed so wonderfully light and open, as though the music existed in the air around us and the band somehow trapped it into six minute epiphanies.

But, as I said, it has been eight months. I was severely put off the band late last year, and the bursting emotion within the music has made it difficult for me to return. I found the courage to show my Uncle their DVD Heima whilst in Canada, and during the screening I remember telling myself that despite my minor disillusion with them, such beautiful music will always have a place in me, somewhere. Nonetheless, it was still a hard ninety minutes.

I have returned to the phenomenal 2005 album Takk this afternoon, and I was right... it's been there waiting for me. It sparked all the usual thoughts and emotions that made me so happy when I first heard them. It even exploited my shallow vein of pretentiousness! :

'Pfft, Beirut is just Sigur Ros for dummies'

There is so much hype about this sound, and that sound these days, it is impossible for anybody to keep up. I'm sure all these latest-shit bands that change Pitchfork's musical palette every week may sound cool now, but they won't in thirty years. It the midst of this maelstrom it comforts me to know that our generation still enjoys music that will never date. Don't be fooled by Fleet Foxes or the Ruby Suns... bands as these produce quality, enjoyable music but they are not the gospel they are marketed to be by a music press struggling for relevancy. Please go and listen to Takk... or Ágætis Byrjun and see what I mean. Because, Sigur Ros have shown me the light again.

Like This? Try This:

• The Dirty Three - The Dirty Three
• God is an Astronaut - All is Violent, All is Bright
• The Album Leaf - In a Safe Place
  
• Efterklang - Parades
• The Arcade Fire - Funeral
• Mogwai - Mr. Beast