Upcoming n-Somnia Project Delayed

 Hello everyone.

It's been a while since my previous blog, as you can probably tell.  Seems this year has been a busy one.  Unfortunately, it hasn't all been for the best of reasons.  I won't go into deep details here (at least not right now), but I feel I should explain what's going on with my upcoming n-Somnia release and why you may not see it at the planned time I gave it.

A while ago, I announced that I would be starting work on songs that I created back in high school.  The music that started it all, basically.  For various different reasons, almost none of these songs have been heard by anyone other than me inside my own head.  I've been hanging onto these songs since at least 1995.  No joke.  Ever since, I've been wanting to get these songs out there for you all to hear, but there's always been a hurdle in my way.  Now, at the end of 2024, things aren't too much different, except maybe that the hurdle in question is more serious than some of the ones I encountered in the past.

Without saying too much, earlier this year, I've unexpectedly assumed an important role of being a caregiver of sorts - and no, it's nothing to do with kids.  Unfortunately, it's health-related.  Not my own health, but someone very close to me.  Because of this, a lot of my time has been taken up by helping this person with various needs, whether it be around my home or going out and about with them or on their behalf.  As a result, I haven't even been able to record any demos, or even start writing.  It's not what I wanted, but because of the situation and who's involved, I'd rather put things on hold for their sake.

Keep in mind that this does not, by any means, suggest that I'm cancelling the project!  No matter what happens now or in the near future, the songs from my Swede era will still go ahead.  It's just unlikely at this point that we'll see them on Bandcamp by August/September 2025 like I'd hoped.

So, until something changes in the near future - good or bad - there won't be any further Swede updates.  Whatever happens, you'll most likely get an update soon after.  If anything, you'll probably learn more details to do with the situation first, before Swede stuff.

I'm sorry if you were getting excited about what I hoped to bring in under a year from now.  Unfortunately, sometimes life throws way too many curve balls at once.  We all have to pick our battles, and in this case it's health over music.  I promise to get back into it as soon as possible, whenever that may be.

Thank you for understanding.  I'll keep you posted!

Music Playlists on YouTube For Your Viewing Pleasure

A lot of you should know by now, I have 2 YouTube channels.  One for my personal projects (Stuffed Duck Productions) and one for nostalgic videos of New Zealand's past (Nostalgia Duck, a.k.a. Duckstalgia), which features a lot of old TV commercials among other things.  For some time now, my "Duckstalgia" channel has been featuring playlists (made up of other people's uploaded videos) for music artists.  Some still going, others not so much.

In the past, I've uploaded a bunch and announced them on my "Forgotten Favourites" page on Facebook.  However, in the past week or so, I've created so many of them, it's now at a point where it's easier just to announce all of them here in a single blog post.  So, below you will see a list of these playlists that you can view at any time.  Each will be linked directly to the playlist themselves.  I will include the ones I've already announced on Facebook.

 

The playlists I am mentioning here are the ones focusing on specific music artists and their discography.  There are other playlists, but this blog post won't be covering them at this time.  You are welcome to check out my channel to see the rest though.

Important note: Sometimes on YouTube, videos can vanish.  Whether they've been set to private or removed entirely.  Unfortunately, this can make an impact on any playlists that have added these videos to them, screwing up the order completely.  In my case, I've tried my best to use videos from official sources in an attempt to avoid this from happening, but I can't guarantee that every video will be in all of the playlists for this reason.  I will, however, try to keep them updated as much as possible when I have the time to do so.

With that said, here are the music artist playlists I have featured for your viewing/listening pleasure (clicking each link opens a new tab):

a-ha

Aishah and the Fan Club

Altered Images

Berlin

Blondie 

Bon Jovi

Bros 

Bryan Ferry

The Cranberries 

Dave Dobbyn / Th' Dudes / DD Smash

Def Leppard 

Depeche Mode

Duran Duran 

Eurythmics

Genesis / Peter Gabriel 

Genesis / Phil Collins

George Michael 

Gyllene Tider

The Human League / Phil Oakey 

Ian Morris & Rikki Morris (Jag Moritz / Tex Pistol / Rikki Morris solo)

Icehouse 

INXS + Michael Hutchence (1980-2004, 2015 & 2019)

The Jackson 5 

John Farnham

Joy Division / New Order

Lita Ford

Marie Fredriksson 

Men Without Hats

Michael Jackson 

Nirvana

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) 

Per Gessle

Pet Shop Boys 

The Police

Pseudo Echo 

Radiohead

Robert Palmer 

Roxette

Roxy Music 

Simple Minds

Sinéad O'Connor 

Smashing Pumpkins

Spandau Ballet 

Tears for Fears

The The 

Tina Turner

Toni Basil 

Twisted Sister

Visage 

Ultravox

Wham! 

The Art of the Lip Sync

By now, we should all be familiar with the lip sync.  In fact, a lot of today's music "artists" make a living off of it.  Which is why I have strong feelings about how I think Milli Vanilli was unfairly judged.  They became the scapegoat.  Sure, they never appeared on the albums they released before getting caught, but that doesn't mean they didn't try to do it for real afterwards.  Either way, I still blame their producer for putting them in that position.  It was his idea after all.  Why nobody else that did this never got a slap on the hand still baffles me.

Anyway, my introduction to the concept of the lip sync came out of the late 80's or early 90's.  It could've been earlier, but as a small child, I didn't know any better.  I probably assumed that the music videos I watched on "RTR Countdown" each week were performed with a hidden microphone or something.  This would change as I entered my teen years when I watched a short documentary about Roxette, called "The Making of Joyride".

A few years before this was when I actually learned about what lip sync actually is, and it wasn't just because of Milli Vanilli.  It came in the form of 4 young Pacific Islanders from my class at the time, when they decided to do a lip sync performance for the camping trip we all went on.  It was around 1992 and we all went to Hanmer Springs Forest Camp for a week.  Keeping with the school camp tradition (which was known to me from 1990 onward), the final evening (Thursday) would have what was called a "Camp Concert".  Those who wanted to could perform an act of their choice for the rest of the kids.  In the case of these 4 boys, they chose to do a lip sync of the R&B group, Color Me Badd.  They did so well, they actually had encore performances (yes, plural).  In the end, they performed the first 4 songs of the band's debut album - "I Wanna Sex You Up" (a bit controversial for a lip sync performance from 11-12 year olds), "All 4 Love", "Heartbreaker" and "I Adore Mi Amore".

Sadly, the 1993 camp I went on didn't feature a lip sync in the Camp Concert.  But as I went into my high school years, more lip sync performances would appear in the form of a competition dedicated to the art form.  One of my friends, Tali Feterika (pretty sure he was in the previously mentioned group) made an appearance on the high school stage in a lip sync group called Taro Overdose.  I can't remember what song they did, but it took me back to our primary school years when Tali would often take part in this sort of thing.  If not the same year, later on during high school, a few others performed as the Backstreet Boys.  There were quite a few notable performances in the lip sync competitions, right up to the time I left school.  As you'd expect, by the late 90's came our own version of the Spice Girls.

There was one group that actually came in from another school to perform between the final act and the announcement of the winner.  They performed as B*Witched with the song "C'est La Vie".  This performance is notable not just because they were outsiders, but also because of the blooper that took place right at the beginning.  As the song goes, it opens with the line, "Uh oh!"  This ended up being quite symbolic, because right at that moment before the "Uh oh", the tape stopped - leaving the audience looking at 4 girls with their mouths wide open.  Cue hysterical, childish laughter.  Turns out the tape got caught in the machine, so the organisers had to use another for the girls to finish their performance.  Thankfully they had one, otherwise...we would've just had this instead. 😮😮😮😮

One more high school era lip sync story that I will mention comes from my final school year.  I can't remember the guy's name, but I'm still surprised he got away with what he did.  Short version - he performed a striptease to Joe Cocker's "You Can Leave Your Hat On".  You read it correctly.  A striptease - right down to a novelty thong - at a high school.  Something I didn't need to see, but here we are. 😨

Anyone who went to school with me and knows about my love for music, and the fact that I was playing in a band at one point, must be wondering...how come I never actually performed in any of the lip sync competitions OR the Camp Concerts?  The answer is simple, really.  I just never really had the right people to accompany me on stage for it.  There would've been a time where I'd have been open to doing a lip sync as Roxette with a group of friends, and there was even a time where I pondered the idea of doing a lip sync with my band using one of our recordings.  This didn't happen because of the quality of the recordings we had available, which is a story I've told before on the Supertrip website before.  It's a shame, really.  I wanted to get into it.  There were just too many setbacks.  Even with the primary school's Camp Concerts.  I was getting into acting and comedy around this time, especially Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean (as well as his live stage shows), so I would've been more than happy to have done a reenactment or similar...if I wasn't so shy back then.

I will close this blog entry with a question, and please feel free to leave a comment with an answer.  Lip sync competitions and Camp Concerts...are they still a thing in 2024?  I'm interested in knowing if they're still going or did the fad disappear into the abyss that is the world we live in today?  If there isn't, then maybe someone should look into a revival of some kind.  Perhaps I could play a role in it somehow.  Let me know! 😁

April Fool's Day 2024 - A Review

 It's that time of the year again!  The time where I gather the clever moments I witnessed on social media (primarily Facebook) and compile them into a single blog post.  Let's see how 2024 did this time around...

As always, this is in no particular order:

1. NIGHT 'N DAY.

The Night 'n Day store's Facebook page is already known for the occasional snappy and witty posts, so it would be no surprise to see an April Fool's Day entry of theirs making the list.  This year, they offered a Coriander & Lime Deluxe Shake.  The very thought of it is enough to make you cry.

2. McDONALD's.

Pickle lovers out there would've loved this, but that wouldn't make those people any less weird. 😑

3. MUCH MOORE ICE CREAM.

Considering that one year, Metro Mart once released a Beef & Chocolate Pie (no joke, I've tried it), I'm surprised this hasn't been attempted in real life.  But then again, I'm also not surprised.  Schrödinger's Surprise, if you will.

4 & 5. HORNBY - GREATER HORNBY RESIDENTS ASSOCIATION INC.

This Facebook page posted more than one prank this year.  First up, they proposed a "planned" zip-line option for making it easier to cross the street near The Hub Hornby mall area.

Second, they did a similar one using a hydroslide system from Hornby High School to the new swimming pool complex (opening soon) to give students easier access to the facilities.

6. KFC.

A new take on the KFC bread rolls.  It seemed OK at first, until you continued reading.

7 & 8. BURGER KING.

The first one of these was posted by a group I'm in called New Zealand 1980s Memories and 1990s Memories.  Going back to my comments on the Metro Mart pie, this one could work...maybe?

As I was gathering info and taking screenshots for this blog, I went to the Burger King NZ page to find this one, but I couldn't (an overseas one, maybe?).  However, I did find this one on the NZ page...

9. AIR FORCE MUSEUM OF NEW ZEALAND.

This was one of those pranks you had to witness in person, but thankfully for us online folk, we got a photo taken for our viewing pleasure.

10. WATTIE'S NZ / BIG SAVE FURNITURE

The collaboration you never asked for, and most likely never will.  Can you imagine the mess?

11. SUBWAY NEW ZEALAND.

A classic Kiwi snack, only this time it's a foot long.

12. TAHKYN.

 My final entry for this year's April Fool's Day highlights comes from someone I know personally.  Tahkyn is a digital artist, and this year he decided to take his artwork to the next level - or so it would seem. 😜

For more of his artwork, you can see it here (not a sponsored post).

 

This concludes my April Fool's Day 2024 post!  I hope you enjoyed the list as much as I did collecting entries on the day.  Without a doubt, 2025 will be just as creative.