Posts by Simon Grigg
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Capture: Old Delhi, in reply to Russell Brown,
What’s the big round food thing with the tomatoes? I think I want to eat it.
It's a chickpea mountain - kind of a snack food as far as I could see. Extremely popular.
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Just clarifying a little – by “mostly he didn’t” I mean that it didn’t encourage others to get in a van and trek around the country – it took a special kind of drive that Mi-Sex certainly had to do that at the time.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas that…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
surely his pioneering work in taking it to the provinces showed the financially astute that there was a buck to be turned out there.
Mostly he didn’t. Mi-Sex made their name in Australia after a brief live spell more or less in Auckland and Wellington, with brief (successful) forays into the provinces, returning as hit-making heroes to large venues. The earlier proggy incarnations, Fragments of Time and Father Thyme, played the provinces but there was no established national touring circuit at the time. They did residencies at places like the Cabana, an important venue but one that was mostly residencies until the end of the 70s. Their pic is at the link.
I think we give the Mi-sex their due but their importance was not as a provincial touring act when they appeared. I’m not saying they and other bands didn’r head out and do well, but they were not the beneficiaries of an established circuit as others later were.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas that…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Or a case of the tail pretending it wagged the dog back then. Surely it’s a story that could have been told without needlessly aggrandising an often self-serving system that arguably took as least as much as it gave back.
It was a business Joe and it made money. I’m not sure that’s a problem or a crime, but from memory the agency never made a lot of money – certainly not the sort of money the old school agencies were making in the 60s. The regional scenes that grew up in the wake of the new touring circuit were immensely important too and may not have existed without it – at least in the same way. The Skeptics openly admitted they were inspired by the touring Newmatics, The F-Star scene in Gisborne and the New Plymouth scene that gave us the likes of Nocturnal Projections are all quite open about the importance of the new touring acts.
Not only that, but it made a lot of acts fiscally viable. The early 1980s was the decade in in which the music industry as we know know it took root – both mainstream and to the left of that – and what was created by this small group of businessmen was central to that. You can thank NMM for the Dobbyn and Exponents national phenomena (they were far and away the most popular acts in NZ between 1981 and 1985) and The Mockers (same in the mid-decade).
It’s really hard to deny the historic importance of what Corless, with regional partners (Nesbitt, Wilson, Young etc) did for our fledging industry. In 1977 the live scene was almost dead – in 1983 it was vibrant and as much as we would like to think it was the rise of the indies and post-punk etc, it was primarily because this lot gave people somewhere to play.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Good ideas that…, in reply to Joe Wylie,
A real pity to see Audio Culture hosting that kind of puff piece.
Given the historic importance of the subject (the agency and the driving force behind it) , I don’t see it’s a puff piece at all and I suspect the countless bands who benefited immensely from that solid touring circuit and the many, many people who got to see the literally dozens of acts that were able to get out and play nationwide to audiences that would not have had chance to see them may also disagree. That list of acts includes almost every live rock and roll act in New Zealand at time who made a decision to play beyond their home base. It changed things – and rather radically.
Did stuff go down? I have absolutely no idea but I’ve heard those rumours too – and I’ve heard similar about other eras – and as anyone who was active back then would know, they were matched with very vocal denials, so all we are left with is hearsay and chinese whispers. We discussed this before we accepted the story and decided that the undoubted and known historic substance of the changes wrought warranted a piece.
The shares, likes and multiple positive comments on the story across several FB pages perhaps underline that. It seems a lot of those supporting the story were actually there and many had long industry careers and maybe get why this was briefly important. Or maybe it's rose tinted sentimentality - we are all guilty of that I'm sure.
I’m aware Toy Love had a bad experience perhaps, but bad business decisions sadly were something that plagued them and to be fair it wasn’t NMM that selected Michael Browning as a manager and did a deal that was disadvantageous. Most touring bands did rather well from the circuit – the various acts I was working with (Blams, Meemees, Newmatics, Dabs. Mockers, Bongos, Dance Exponents, some of the Flying Nun acts etc) all did.
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There seems to be a few things missing from that Ella balance though (unless Matt has taken them into account behind the scenes).
In the minus ledger:
- recoupment. Recording and first vids are low but who knows what has been charged to her account. The standard is quite a bit, including tour support and assorted promo which can be huge.
- not sure if he's taken into account things like advertising cuts in royalties. You advertise on TV or radio and, unless you've done an unusual deal, your royalty rate is cut, often up to half.
- dealer discounts - see above.In the plus ledger:
- performance income (both master and publishing) - which is the very big one in her ongoing future. The publishing is largely unencumbered income streams from all over the planet which kinda (from experience) go on forever. That, I would think, is why Chris H is saying this is understating the income. The record income will be dwarfed by that. -
Hard News: Friday Music: There have been…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
…or are they licensed to be sold for a pittance with Sony probably taking the lion’s share for production of the object – sorta like the F Nun box set which cost so much to produce none of the artists saw a cent – but way worse…
The standard is that the company absorbs such cost. The artists would get a straight cut of the wholesale price pro-rata-ed by the number of acts regardless of the packaging cost. I think the primary reason that nobody got anything much from that was lack of sales. It was pricy and didn't do much biz - which is a shame as it was a mighty fine selection I thought.
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And we mustn’t forget Sandie Shaw (except for that bloody awful Puppet On a String). I guess she finally earned enough to buy shoes.
Killer moments: Always Something There To Remind Me, Girl Don’t Come, Wight is Wight, I Don’t Need You Anymore (with The Smiths) and Had A Dream Last Night (B-side of the aforementioned Puppet). Sandie is cool.
Talking of which Sandy Edmonds’ Daylight Saving Time was the business locally (unpublished pic I found today here) although her voice didn’t come close to Cilla’s or Sandie’s.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Mo' Nina, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Is Russia the band … back in the day?
Damn, that's an odd matching Ian, probably put together by Larry Young who was agent for both acts I guess. I can't imagine the Toy Love crowd would've got Russia.
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Cool Dancer, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
Given the talents of all the players involved
I remember grimacing at the time - the players being Chris Mai'ai, Alan Jansson and Grant Kearney of course, all of whom went on to somewhat more illustrious things.
