Oh, for the love of travelling. I have been in New Zealand (or Enn Zid, as I've been calling it recently) for the past few days, being all worker bee like in a foreign country. Yeah! But what it also means is that I've transformed into a zombie from early wake ups + two flights in the one day + three hour time difference. Boo... Despite my right royal tiredness, I want to write about my little jaunt yesterday in Auckland to the resident indie cool hangout, Real Groovy Records.
This was fun! I had been visiting packaging suppliers all morning and found some free time in the afternoon to explore Auckland a bit, including some of my favourite designers. But this record store was enormous! A huge section at the front for DVDs and books, then big racks of records and CDs out the back. My favourite section, by far, was the sale racks. People of AKL, what are you doing not snapping up all this stuff? I found the following in those racks:
- Denim - "It Fell Off The Back Of A Lorry" CD Single - $4 (this includes 'I Will Cry At Christmas', a wonderfully cheery festive track I included on last year's Christmas selection)
- Elastica - "The Menace" CD - $4 (it is probably shit but I want to chortle at 'How He Wrote Elastica Man', featuring Mark E. Smith himself)
- Menswear - "Nuisance" CD - $2 (I felt a bit embarrassed buying this but then I thought, "you know what? It's $2, which means it's about $1.60 in Australian dollars, and I am probably really going to enjoy listening to it")
- Boyracer - "In Full Colour" CD - $2 (haven't heard this either but I couldn't pass it up for the price)
There's gold in those sale racks! What wasn't so good was the selection of classic NZ albums - I would have loved some Verlaines CDs or some really good Flying Nun records but they weren't to be found. Sigh. Or maybe I just didn't look hard enough. However, there is a new Verlaines record out at the moment - it's called 'Potboiler', I believe. I should have probably bought it. Oh, I also bought the Fire Engines' "Hungry Beat", which I'm pretty excited about because I love them so much.
If you're ever in Auckland, make sure you go there! And if you are ever in New Zealand, go to Wellington because I thought it was much prettier than Auckland and has a train that runs right by the beautiful bay.
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7 comments:
Ahh, New Zealand. Never been there myself, but what's not to love about a place that gave the world Neil Finn, Flight of the Conchords and the strangely compelling wildlife docu-series that is The Zoo?! (I'd be lost without my regular fix of Trent, Christine and co.)
I'm slightly worried about the far-reaching effects of all those lesser Britpop bands, though, and the fact that Menswear and Boyracer made it as far as NZ. Sorry, we had no idea! ;)
I have that self same Denim CD BTW. What a cracking trio of tracks that contains!
^ That was me by the way, inadvertently signing your guestbook under the confusing 'too much' moniker! (I'm always forgetting to switch over to my own, non-Too Much Apple Pie account when signing people's guestbooks. Ho hum.)
oh, my mum is obsessed with the zoo! i'm the one obsessed with flight of the conchords, though, which is probably the way it should be.
Your mum is obviously someone of extreme good taste! :p
I reckon The Zoo needs a couple of new additions to get more younger folk tuning in: a rhymenocarus and a hiphopopotamus! ;)
Enjoy that Fire Engines album!! 'Candyskin' has gotta be one of my all time favourite songs. The band were completely ignored in a programme about Scottish music (from Postcard to the present day) that was broadcast last week in the UK.
Man I miss Real Groovy - it's crap for new stuff but the sale stuff is excellent. My favourite thing was that if I ever wondered what Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours', or some other hugely successful album, actually sounds there I new I could pop in there at any time and get it for NZ$5 or something. Once they brought in some sale 7" and I got all the Go Sailor 7" and some softies and more for $4 each. The thing is though it's the ONLY half decent record store in Auckland.
Regarding The Zoo, I can't believe that made it overseas - I used to watch it all the time and then whenever I went there it felt like going on the set of Coronation Street or something.
Yes, it's on Zone Reality here in the UK. *checks watch* It's on in about 15 minutes' time in fact! Tragically, however, I don't have satellite TV at home so I can't watch it. Bummer.
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