Reviews for The 13th Floor. Click the link for the full review.

Unkle
Only The Lonely (EP)
(Surrender All)
Each track has an entirely different flavour at its centre, but the different voices and ideas are unified by their coating of silky synths, creamy programmed drums and secret ingredient of bitter dark chocolate intensity. The Nick Cave flavour is certainly the most moreish on opening track Money and Run...

All Time Low
Dirty Work
(Interscope)
The album also features vocal harmonies that sound like tortured Tasmanian Devils scraping their claws down blackboards while playing out of tune violins with their teeth...

Chad VanGaalen
Diaper Island
(Sub Pop)
Indie king VanGaalen has already released three acclaimed albums, illustrated and animated music videos for artists including J Mascis and Holy Fuck, and recorded albums for art rock band Women. With the release of fourth album Diaper Island, he cements his status as one of the coolest kids in Calgary...

The last of the home-made Jonnie Rose music videos.

The film is also groundbreaking in managing to make Madmen’s Jon Hamm seriously and deliriously unattractive, particularly when he tries to exert his powers of seduction over Annie by kneading her breast like a demented fifteen year old....

Read the full review at 13th floor here.

Two tracks from my old band Jonnie Rose.

Reviews for The 13th Floor. Click the link for the full review.

Foster the People
Torches
(Startime International)
Foster the People sound as though they’ve sprung from the loins of MGMT, Passion Pit and Hot Chip, but with an audacious sensibility befitting a young band that’s had such a dream run...

The Vines
Future Primitive
(Sony)
Future Primitive is like a confused but very well-intentioned puppy that wants to run up to you and lick your face...

Man Man
Life Fantastic
(Anti-)
With Honus Honus’ raspy vocals and devolving piano, it sounds like The Brunettes doing a guest spot in Hell.

Other Lives
Tamer Animals
(TBD)
These eleven tracks are moody, cinematic takes on alternative folk that are likely to appeal to plaid-wearing fans of The National and Fleet Foxes...

For ages, I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong.

If philosopher Viktor Frankl could put up with the Nazis, why couldn’t I put up with being single? As I struggled to feel ok about my situation, Frankl’s teachings kept taunting me. He survived a concentration camp. I had barely survived two years of being on my own.

I was a failure. I was shallow. I couldn’t stop thinking about why being single sucked. Here are just some of the reasons I came up with:

• Being judged. People make all sorts of funny assumptions about you. Like that you must be having a wild, swingin’ fun time. You must be promiscuous. You must have a massive disposable income. You must want to sleep with other women’s boyfriends. You must be too picky. Or too desperate. Or both! Perhaps you’re a bit too weird to have a boyfriend. And you must be sad and lonely.
• Being sad and lonely. (Ok you just are sometimes.)
• Being rudderless. At a certain point it’s hard to plan your life when you have no idea if you’ll get married or have kids. Yep, the whole “kids” thing can certainly lead to a few sleepless nights…
• Not getting any. Your coupled-up friends go to great lengths to cock block you when they fear you’re in danger of ‘lowering your standards’.
• Still not getting any. Having to be the moral handbrake for randy guys with partners. This is so unfair (and often ball-breaking as they tend to be handsome and charming).
• Yep, still not getting any.
• Social leprosy. You’re off the invitation list until you’re part of a nice, acceptable couple again.
• Low status. When it’s you vs a couple it’s always two to one. This is particularly galling in shared accommodation situations when your flatmate’s girlfriend gets her way despite not paying rent. (And you never get the couch.)
• High living costs. When you’re half of a de facto or married couple, your accommodation costs are halved. Your utility and food bills decrease. Holiday costs are lower. You no longer have a primal urge to deposit your income in bars in an attempt to find a mate. The negative economic ramifications for single people are huge.
• Social invisibility. Your problems are not important. You are one person, and therefore inherently selfish. (Not to mention promiscuous / weird / having an indecent amount of fun / sad and lonely.)

Today I found out that Frankl’s teachings were based around the concept of love. He believed that love is the purpose of life. The apple-dropping moment came when he realised that by daydreaming about his wife he could mentally escape his circumstances. Meditating on their love helped him retain his dignity in appalling conditions. Her love gave him purpose.

So it’s no wonder that without love, life can feel a bit pointless sometimes. Especially when you feel judged, isolated and marginalized because of a social crime you didn’t even want to commit. I’d like to see more love and less suspicion between ‘singles’ and ‘couples’. Hey, we’ve all been on the other side. And we probably will be again.

Anyway, I finally cured my single gal blues. All it took was moving into a place of my own.
My little 70s unit may not be a very profound solution.
But I really love it.

For ages, I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong.
I worked hard and achieved well in a full-time professional role.
I lived pretty frugally: Primarily second hand wardrobe, still (embarrassingly) going to the same cheap bars I frequented as a student, used a motorbike (or legs) instead of a car. Rarely bought cheese.

None of my expenses (insurance, rent, ¼ mortgage on the cheapest house in Henderson) seemed extravagant for a hard working 30 year old professional with a great education. None of my desires (a trip to the dentist, a holiday once a year, the ability to contribute 4% to Kiwisaver) seemed unreasonable.

I had no dependants other than one very cost-effective cat.

I didn’t expect to be living like Carrie Bradshaw. But I didn’t anticipate my shoe collection would be a bunch of battered boots and tatty heels sitting in a bag until I had enough money to take them to the cobbler.

Then it hit me.

Student loans.

Student loans came into force after high tertiary education fees were introduced in 1991. Previously, university education was essentially free.  The average annual university fee was $4000 by the time I was studying. A BA, an MA, necessary living costs (I also worked all through my studies) and a botched year failing to learn audio engineering later, and I had a pretty sizeable loan. That loan is still coming out of my pay packet, in very noticeable chunks, and will continue to do so for another 4-5 years (longer if the next government decides to reintroduce interest). The day my payments end I’m going to feel like I’ve won lotto. But in the meantime, I’m part of the first wave of people with student loans in the workforce, struggling to make ends meet in a professional role.

The worrying results of high student fees and student loans:

• Decline of living standards. Student loan repayments are severely injurious to my ideal way of life, and ironically, also affect the way I’m perceived at work. (“Oh her. Why does she always wear second hand clothes in the office? What a hippy.  Let’s never give her a promotion.”)
• Class divide. The rich, who perhaps didn’t pay their fees themselves or who paid their loans back quickly, are able to pocket and invest more of their salaries, for longer. The poor and middle class are bonded to student debt for years or decades, thus being even less likely to invest in home ownership, start-up businesses, retirement, other financial interests, or their children’s educations
• Gender divide. No allowance is made for women who take time away from the workforce to raise children. Given that in most circumstances a family is created with the willing participation of two parties, the fact that the woman (or primary caregiver) is one who has to suffer financially – not only by missing out on possible promotions, but in potentially having a student debt for life – is blatant discrimination
• Impact on families. I certainly wouldn’t want to have a kid until I’d paid off my loan, and I can’t be the only woman who feels that way. (It also occurs to me that Working for Families could be in part necessitated by couples who are unable to make ends meet because of their student loans… but that’s a whole other blog entry)
• Brain drain. ‘Nuff said.

It seems that our parents lived through some kind of financial golden age, and that it’s foolish to try to measure our lives against theirs (not to mention extremely depressing). And in a year when people have lost lives to disasters, homes to the earthquake and jobs to the recession it seems pretty trivial to be whinging about not being able to afford tickets to the odd Powerstation show.

But I can’t help wondering whether incomes will ever catch up to the level demanded by student loans, or whether high education fees are slowly but surely contributing to social problems and class divides we can’t even fathom yet.

Interesting Salient article on student fees here.