Cue: Bring in the National Anthem and fly the New Zealand flag in the background.

Five amazing bands have just represented our country in one of the world's biggest music conferences, South by South West 2005, in Austin, Texas. Our team was strong with five unique, classy acts. Jakob, Pluto, The Coolies, The Have and The Mint Chicks. And now you will learn why these bands were the "chosen ones."

All five acts stand out because they all have their own special aura. They give off their own glowing light, and create an everlasting effect on the audience. In their genres, they blend in what others forget to see, audiences live to hear and what we all dream to encounter. These bands are doing it their own way, and this is what makes us stop and really listen to what they are playing.

The Mint Chicks are a real example. They take conformity, throw it against the wall, collect the splatter and wrap it up in lively gift wrap and a neat red ribbon. This is what music should be about.

If you squeeze a bit of retro on a typical rock band. Scoop on come ice-cool charm and whip on some great hair you will not even be close to the high standard of The Have. After winning the Cokesmokefree Rockquest they have been living the rock and roll dream, which they completely deserve.

Confidence is a must if you are to be a great performer. But then ofcourse you can not have too much. Not unless you are Pluto. The band have coloured in the wings of rock and can pull off anything with their attractive spin on simplicity. They polish off what many leave unfinished, adding a gleam to the rusty nails that hold together music.

High school is a common place to embark on the colourful journey of playing in a band. The Coolies have not only slid their way along the rainbow, but have found their own pot of gold. And that is with limited help along the way. The band self released their debut album.

Echoes and echoes of hard beats hitting floating notes that are shot down by a ray of sunlight. Making complete sense is not always a straight forward path. Why take the straight path? The twisted trail might end up in the same destination. The music of Jakob may just carry the answer to this question, having something simple and light walk hand in hand with something sharp and heavy, as if it was just an average sound. But average is what this exceeds.

So, this definition of what it takes is just a sample of the reasons why New Zealand music is becoming so successful. As you can see, the bands have represented us well, and would have stood out among over 1300 bands at SxSW. These five bands are so talented and unique that it is difficult to really describe. But they all dare to be different and that is one the things that makes them so appealing. But now that we like different so much, will it become the same?

- Janise

The new album from The D4 is finally out in stores! It features the hit single 'Sake Bomb' and the new single 'Out Of My Head', along with a whole heap of other new material. The guys are shortly heading off to the UK to complete a tour around Europe with The Hives - great stuff from a top kiwi band!

With that... we bring you...

The D4 Book of Rules
(Warning - content may offend some people)

1. Get a shit-kicking, lowdown, filthy rock n roll group together consisting of 2 members from riotous local bands, a stranger from the South Island and a maniacal drummer from the darkest depths of the Hauraki Plains.

2. Call the band 'The D4' and never tell the truth as to why.

3. Write some damn good songs, become the wildest, dirtiest and most exciting live band the country has seen. Hone your skills until women swoon and brave men tremble at your name.

4. Release an E.P through local legend label Flying Nun (that's us), the quality and sheer excitement of which forces them to stump up funds for an album.

5. Make the album and call it '6TWENTY'. Secure releases in every major territory in the known world while touring heavily anywhere and everywhere, building on your reputation as a sonic explosion of fire and noise.

6. Tour the record for 2 years solid through Europe, the USA, Japan and Australasia, playing major festivals (Glastonbury/PukkelPop/Reading/Leeds/Fuji Rock/Little Stevens Underground Garage Festival/Livid/Big Day Out/Homebake etc) and as many club dates as is physically possible. Find time to also appear on only the finest and widely aired TV shows known to mankind (Letterman is a good choice). Do a million interviews and lie in all of them (see rule 2.)

7. Come home and sleep for 2 weeks.

8. Leave home and head to England under pressure from all sides to make a second record faster, and much better, than the first.

9. Rent a complete shit-hole of a flat in South London and move the band all in together, get on each others nerves and use the tension and complete wasteland around you for inspiration to write a whole bunch of great new songs.

10. Ride the dirty old Northern Tube line day after day to a secret studio location to demo the new material with a couple of guys known only as 'the Dirty Geezers'.

11. Get wasted and wreck the flat.

12. Repeat

13. Give the new songs titles like 'Too Stupid To Live', 'Trust Nobody', 'Sake Bomb', 'What I Want' and 'Stops Me Cold'.

14. Find a studio outside of London, making sure that it lies within the flight path of any surviving WWII aircraft in the area, thus ensuring the excitement levels of the drummer only ever increase, and never decline.

15. Set the band up together and spend the 10 days catching the perfect takes needed for the album. Record live onto tape, and go back to the songs only to perfect the vocals. Bring in Hammond organ players & Harmonica players, record live with them then realize they weren't necessary and fire them. Track the album swiftly and furiously, pausing only to fit in the odd game of fuss-ball or a kick about on the lawn.

16. Head back to London to mix the thing, but also find time to have a quick fling with one Alan Moulder (producer of acts such as N.I.N. & Smashing Pumpkins) and record two additional tracks with him for kicks. Put them on the album.

17. Reluctantly (ha!) leave South London abode and return to New Zealand to find small gifted children to assemble the artwork, make the videos, and prepare to launch the glory of the newborn album on the eagerly waiting world...

We've been making a few subtle changes to muzic.net.nz since our last newsletter two weeks ago. So that everyone is aware of them, here they are:

• New website search engine - We've made heaps of changes to this, and it now gives more accurate search results than ever before! The problem with it only showing some artists and not others has now been corrected and with the amount data we have it takes around four seconds to do a search. It ain't google, but it's nearly as good - check it out at the top left hand corner on muzic.net.nz.
• Polls! Polls are back up and running, with all of the old bugs fixed. We'll try and add some over the next few days, but if you have any ideas, we still need them! Reply to this email if you have anything!
• New artist rankings. We've made a huge improvement here in the interest of fairness. The old system meant that the "Top Artists" for each genre on the artist pages almost never changed. We've now fixed this, and changed it's name to "Most Popular Artists". Check out the Artist pages to check it out!

Well that's about it from me. After a huge Edgefest weekend in Wellington, and then having to come back to a huge stack of emails, I'm well... buggered!

-- Adam

New Artists on muzic.net.nz

The following artists have been added to muzic.net.nz over the past two weeks. Be sure to check them out and give them your support!

Competitions

The following people have won prizes:

The D4 Sake Bomb Prize Pack - E. McCabe, Lower Hutt - G. Hall, Massey
Gods of Nothing - 'The Beers EP' - M. Macfie, Auckland - R. Clark, Christchurch
8 Foot Sativa - 'Breed The Pain' - P. Davey, Dunedin - B. Fallow, Invercargill

There are still loads of chances to win great stuff, just check out our competitions page!

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