
Die! Die! Die!
There’s not just an urgency about the Die! Die! Die! band name. Their music too is an insurgent mix of riffs and melodies. We spoke with the New Zealand group to get the lowdown: While your music is deliberately loose and abrasive, there’s something incredibly appealing about it. How do you maintain this sheer energy without striding too far into the obscure? ‘We always try and make sure we are not being too indulgent when we write songs. We come from a very “noise” background of just jamming and whatever sounds best turns into the song. So we try and make sure there is at least something which sort of resembles a hook of some sort. We also try and make sure that when we write songs there be a vibe and something exciting happening in the room. We like having fun’. Comparisons will no doubt be drawn with At the Drive-In, The Misfits, perhaps even Nirvana. But it’s a sound that rarely hits the mainstream these days. What are you doing that’s different to all those who have failed to breakthrough? ‘I don’t think we are in the mainstream at all or “broken”. We are very far from that. I think because we are all best friends and the fact we spend all our time together and we party together, we are a little bit different because we are always on the same page as each other. It is pretty sick if you think about it’. Despite its quality, New Zealand’s music scene is only slowly coming to the world’s attention. What can bands like yours do to shed light on this unsung hero? ‘I LOVE: The Coolies, Haunted Love, Operation Rolling Thunder, and Tapeman. There are some amazing bands in New Zealand. I hate how the greatest bands in New Zealand are usually the laziest’. Finally, what kind of Promises Promises are you making, and to who? ‘We aren’t making any promises. People make promises to us’.
Tagged: Die! Die! Die! noise music, New Zealand music, pop music
RELATED
Back in the day, when I was a skinny teenager on the great pedestal of life, I had a real obsession for the understated, low-fi, deliciously melodic and somewhat blurry sounds of the New Zealand Flying Nun bands. I would pool my meagre savings and canvas the local record shops, scouring the racks for the latest cassettes from The Bats, The Chills, The Clean, and, later, The Straitjacket Fits. Read more
Andrew Fagan, lead singer of The Mockers, the poppiest New Zealand band of the 80s, came around to my place once when I was an impressionable 10-year old with stars in my eyes and a head full of shiny, shiny melodies. Read more
The sound New Zealand band The Brunettes make is Hallmark card pop — naïve sincerity mixed with low-fi, casual kitsch. Says chief songwriter, Jonathan Bree: ‘You’ll find us somewhere between US punk and just before classic 60s romps’. And so we will.
Also by FRANCIS ANDREWS

Irina Werning’s Back to the Future photo series
Argentine photographer Irina Werning has complied this beautiful and poignant collection of portraits of adults re-enacting images of themselves as kids. From what I gather, she has asked people to submit photographs of themselves and then returned with them to these same spots at the same times in their lives. She’ll take this project round the world, from Baghdad to Eurodisney, and is looking for willing participants. Read more

Bug fighting in South East Asia
Of all the little idiosyncratic activities I’ve come across since living in Southeast Asia, this nears the favourite. The bug fights are held in a cemetery about half an hour outside of Chiang Mai late in the year when the stags are at their randiest. It pulls an impressive crowd who bet some hefty dollars on the winner, claimed by the beetle who throws its opponent off the revolving log and struts (or crawls) to victory. Read more

What The Fuck Should I Make For Dinner
All hail the magic 8-ball of cooking; the answer to those painful moments of indecision that plague every shopper at around 6pm on a hectic Monday evening. It’s not the nagging voice that questions every decision you make, but the blunt, obnoxious hollering of an online Gordon Ramsay. The kitchen abides.
YOU'RE SAYING (0)
No comments yet.
HAVE YOUR SAY
I consider myself lucky to have had the opportunity to revel in New Jersey artist Heejin Roh’s impossibly subtle graphite drawings in person recently. Roh is a fresh out graduate of the SVA Illustration Master’s Program, which had it’s annual student show recently. Having been so impressed with Roh’s work at the show, I was pleased to discover that her images translate so nicely into a tiny jpeg on my computer screen. I only wish there were more!
Artist C.D. Richardson uses some pretty amazing collage techniques to create terrifying, cryptozoological illustrations of monsters and freaks out of old medical and scientific photographs. Read more
You heard it here first. Singer-songwriter Julian Perretta might just become the most exciting new artist of 2008. Read more
I was never a big fan of Barbie, but I would travel to Shanghai just to visit this mind-blowing castle for Barbie dolls. Read more
When I first heard about The Eight Principles of Fun, I thought it sounded frighteningly close to being a self-help service ad. Read more
Don’t be afraid of the word retro. It has haunted us all from time to time, but one group that has embraced it with open arms is UK duo, La Roux. Their music is synth pop in the vein of Calvin Harris, Human League, The Eurythmics, and The Knife. There are quite a few of these young and ambitious pop starlets on the scene including Goldielocks. But La Roux takes the cake. Literally. I’m obsessed with their song In For the Kill and have a feeling summer will take it and make it a hit.
is it TooLate? Is it? Never! This Italian-made watch has a beautiful minimal design, comes in lots of colors, is water proof and goes for less than $30. Hot damn! 10,000 of them were sold in the first ten days after their release and half a million in it’s first year of distribution. Apparently the Italians are wearing two or three of them together as part of some bizarre fashion clique. Wonder if the rest of the world will catch on?
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST

Honest Food Preparation Instructions
Yes, we’ve all been there: the chinese food from last week that still looks edible amongst the bare surrounds of an empty fridge. But really, we shouldn’t. Just let it be. Or College Humor will expose you! Read more

Francoise Nielly’s Yellow series
Parisian visual artist Francoise Nielly brings technicolour to the forefront in her latest series, Yellow. Featuring thick impasto palette knife strokes and trippy neon hues, Nielly captures the vulnerable expressions of her muses to a tee. Read more

Michelle Blade’s psychedelic artwork
Michelle Blade’s washed out paintings are deceptively simple, her washy acrylics creating psychedelic textures and conjuring ghostly figures from the past. Read more

Here are a couple awesome pieces by Matt Leines that were recently on display in the Doubting Thomases exhibit at Nudashank gallery in Baltimore. Gives me ideas for Halloween. Read more

The return of the Brionvega rr226
Italian brand Brionvega has resurrected the classy Radiofonografio piece first created in 1965. The updated version is just like the original turntable/radio unit, but also has a CD/DVD player.
We’re pleased to announce that, as of today, there is free shipping on all items and for all orders in the Lost At E Minor store — our stash of favoured goodies that you can buy for yourself, your friends, or your frenemies (hey, hey, why not?) We’ve got heaps of cool tees, jewellery, watches and other fun items, so knock yourself out. Not literally, of course. [browse the Lost At E Minor online store]
If you have a Twitter feed that focuses on cool pop cultural things and you’d like to swap Tweets with Lost At E Minor and other like-minded Twitterers, drop us a note (with Tweet Swap in the title). We have a system in place and we’d like to have you in on it! [illustration by Brad Fitzpatrick]
DISCOVER MORE
SO...
SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..
IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?
We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it's not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.
If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.



