etnobofin

One of the best Christmas presents I got this year was a DVD of some old family films shot on 8mm and Super 8. Images I hadn’t seen since I was a child, all bathed in that curious watery light that only small-gauge filmstock can create.

The family’s stockpile of 8mm films go back to 1948, (well before my time!), but the earliest parts of my childhood were recorded on Super 8, until the cost and hassle of processing the films became too great.

New Zealand had no film processing labs in those days, so the films were posted to Kodak in New York to be developed. As VHS cameras and cassettes became affordable, the idea of recording home life on filmstock seemed rather quaint.

Watching the films now, it seems we spent a LOT of time on the beach, or playing outside – but of course the low-grade film worked best in natural sunlight, so the camera was used mainly in summer and then only during daytime.

Unfortunately there isn’t too much naff 1980s stuff to laugh at except for my first bike (red chopper-style with a banana seat and trainer wheels), our short shorts and the swingball set at my aunt’s house. (Maybe this is all really 70s stuff – NZ was still under import restrictions and we tended to be about 5 years behind the rest of the world.)

Long, dark evenings in an English January are perfect for editing silly videos to put on Youtube, so I messed around with a 2.30min highlights package. A few of the cats and grandparents are no longer with us, but way back then, it seems like we were all having fun.

The music is by The Cutters, a band from northern California. You can buy their stuff and get free mp3s on their site.

Right, I’m tired of trying to migrate my old content, so the blogging is going to continue in the midst of the chaotic rubble of the demolition-cum-building site, and I’ll see how it all pans out…

We’re still not sure which technical gremlin made etnobofin die after more than two years, but it might have looked like this:

Back soon with some block-rocking beats.

Slowly emerging from a perfect storm of 4 weeks travel for work, a work laptop that died, (meaning I’ve been earning my crust on my personal laptop while awaiting a replacement), a blog that fell over, not to mention the ever-expanding hours of darkness.

Now that serenity seems to be returning to these horizons, I hope to get the old posts up here in the next few days, providing that all the FTP mullarkey works proper. And maybe even a decent blog theme…

Peace

Christ Church Meadow and the cows, last weekend

Derek Bailey – What’s New?
From Ballads: Tzadik [Buy]

Happy New Year ! - I wish that 2007 brings with it everything you hope and dream for.

For 2007, things are going to change around here. Recently, doing some maintenance on etnobofin.com, I got thinking about what the heck it’s all about. For a short time, while peering under the bonnet, (that’s “hood” in many North American dialects, comprenez-vous?), hands smeared with excess oil and burning my nose on steam hissing from the radiator, I did seriously consider driving the whole rickety contraption off a cliff to join the estimated 2.72 million abandoned blogs drifting about in cyberspace.

After all, if etnobofin were abandoned this blog would be in good company – for some really interesting music blogs shut up shop in 2006 as their authors found that other lives and other people required more attention – the work of david fenech, ecrivains.org, samizdjazz, and ianB’s various projects notable among them.

However, the decision was eventually taken not to throw the kitten kaboodle out with the bathwater.

Instead, etnobofin.com will become more inclusive in its subject matter. Music has largely dominated these pages since March 2005. To be honest, there are so many great music blogs out there now doing a better job that I can ever do, and ultimately it’s not clear that I can continue to spin a cohesive narrative out of personal musical interests that are increasingly divergent. (More on that another time).

What will etnobofin.com be about in 2007? Well, like everything it’s a work in progress. It’ll adhere more closely to its mission statement. While music will not disappear from view, it will break the “only-cover-one-topic” rule of blogging and will possibly include more about journeys, writing, naïve stabs at politics, spiritual bits and bobs, ripping yarns, stupid stuff.

Miles Davis will have to learn rub shoulders with Marc Chagall and Ingmar Bergman and BBC Radio Four and scottish islands and cups of tea and candles and the necessity for sleep.

My hopes for etnobofin.com in 2007 are that:

- it will become more interested in people

- it can be honest and humble

- it will smile and laugh at itself

- it’s readers (no matter how few) will be interested and entertained

So that’s where we’re at. If none of this sounds like fun, delete your RSS feeds and Favourite links right now.

etnobofin has moved to a new site:

The amazing adventure continues at www.etnobofin.com !

Please update your links. Thanks to everyone who has visited and contributed to the etnobofin Blogger site over the past 17 months, and I hope you will enjoy the new site.

And to keep the music flowing…

Greyboy* vs Melle Mel – It’s Got to be a Love/The Message

Thanks to DJ Godzilla for this particular mash. Simple but effective. For those of you who don’t live in Auckland, DJ Godzilla plays Walter Matthau to DJ Shagpile’s Jack Lemmon as the awesomest funk DJ duo in town, The Natural Disasters (4-6pm Sundays on Base FM). Muchos Respectos.