Posts by Jason Kemp
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I wonder if the sale of WeAreHunted to twitter earlier this month will add some sparkle to the music app discovery space. Bandcamp is an awesome service and with the right "front end" it can work very well for musicians. I think the community is still out there - it is just much more fragmented and unless you are a fan already the best places is something like soundcloud.
I have been working with a director who is selling quite a few DVD's to the 40+ crowd and it is surprising that many still want a physical file format. Partly that is because NZ broadband caps & speed still means that full length videos are still a bit tricky for the average user.
When I was growing up music and especially radio was the real soundtrack for life. Music TV came a bit later. I can often remember all the details of where I was when I heard a particular piece of music the first time so it then becomes a bit of easy time travel as it gets overlaid with other more recent memories and associations.
BTW @Dave Patrick - the Sounds guy you mentioned was probably Robin Lambert. I met him years later and we laughed about how much I had bought because he made shopping an actual experience.
One of the music store experiences I remember was in a Record Warehouse? in the old His Majestys arcade. That store had a grand piano all decked out in fake snow for the release of SuperTramps "Even in the Quietest Moments" album which came out in 1977.
That was a great store owned by Guy Morris and a number of others who were real music enthusiasts and collectors. Guy had something to do with a music magazine called Hotlicks which came before Rip it Up.
It turns out that Simon Grigg has already written about some of these stores over here
[ [ http://opdiner.com/2013/theres-a-stack-of-shellac-and-vinyl-which-is-yours-now-and-which-is-mine-45/ | There’s a stack of shellac and vinyl / Which is yours now and which is mine? / 45 ] ]
Unfortunately the link doesn't want to work for me so just dropping it in as is.
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Thanks Colin for putting an alternate view out there. There are plenty of churches out there with members and supporters who are more relaxed about this change.
In my experience there is a huge diversity of political views inside churches of all kinds and these span the entire spectrum - not just conservative as many seem to imagine.
From my observation a fair number of my friends are somewhat bemused that anyone actually still wants to get married.
Ironically that gay people want to get married seems more like it will have a stabilising effect pretty much any way you want to measure that. Marriage to me seems like a very conservative thing to do.
A quick look at the actual numbers Civil Unions and Marriages (Provisional) shows since 2006 that there are about 23,000 weddings each year( for the past 6) including civil unions.
Civil Unions between same sex and hetero have been in the order of 200-300 each year which is a tiny fraction of the 23k.
It may be that a high percentage of the civil union folks will want to get married but even if that is the case the numbers are tiny in comparison to the number of other marriages each year which end in divorce.
I'd guess that regardless of what any particular group thinks about marriage I'd hope it is much more optimistic than what they think about divorce.
On a more personal level I know some of the people who want to get married and I'm happy for them and wish them all the best.
I do feel a little bit like some of this is like the Faulty Towers Germans episode where Basil says "Listen, don't mention the war! etc.
In this instance marriage is not about the ceremony it is about much more and anyone who really wants to join the club should be encouraged.
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If MegaBox is still going to be launched then it needs to be reviewed separately from the circus around Kim. He is a fun guy but there are always consequences and while some of them might be unintended they still need to be evaluated.
Any redirection of the sort mentioned above for MegaBox / or Key ( no pun intended) doesn't look like a fair idea. At the moment though the spotlight is on the file storing.
Have there been any useful comparisons of say Dropbox and the new service yet. As a dropbox user hypothetically I can post almost any files there - however in practice I don't use it that way.
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BDO also seems to have created a fair number of NZ fans overseas from various bands and their friends who heard about NZ because they had played at the BDO. Not so long ago (ok early '90's) travelling as a NZer the typical reference point was sports related people that they knew about from NZ.
More recently in the US I met some musicians who had played at the BDO and just loved being here. Indirectly BDO ran an unrecognised music based cultural exchange programme which is why so many bands actually like coming here.
Not so much Pure NZ but as the stories / memories show it was very much a 2 way exchange of goodwill.
Hats off to Lees & West - it is a very long time to be in the festival business and they went above and beyond in making sure NZ shared in the Aussie circuit.
I know a fair number of Aussies coming here for Homegrown in Wellington and BDO also gave a big hand up to many NZ bands here and in Oz that contributed to that and other festivals as it should.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to Russell Brown,
I stand corrected. Clare Curran has done well but I was talking about the bigger picture.
hmmm
and the
"111-11 vote against Gareth Hughes’ amendment to the bill removing disconnection as a penalty?"
how does Labour explain that one?
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to Kracklite,
Thanks Kracklite.
A millipede with OCD and a gatling gun couldn't shoot itself in the foot more often
I had a conversation with a local Labour Party committee member in Auckland who is in despair at the leadership. When grass roots members don't see leadership that is a huge problem.
I was bluntly asked who I think should challenge Goff
On the wider debate - To summarise so far..
1. This is not as bad as the first version 2 years ago.
2. Nat's using urgency to push this through is an abuse of process.
3. Anyone voting National should be made to watch - Shanks, Lee and other Nat mps on this - clueless would be charitable.
4. The Labour party is missing in action
5. Technically unenforceable - or at least very difficult
Are there an PAS readers who would consider standing for parliament. We just have to do better than this. -
Hard News: Popular Paranoiac Politics, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
I like your thinking Danyl. It seems that focus groups and excessive “soundbiting” of political content has led to indecisive election results in UK, Australia & NZ in recent times.
The differences between parties A & B in each country have been so homogenised for public consumption that voters apparently flip a coin on the day.
When it comes to personalities and who gets to be the minister for the various gravy trains that is where the fun begins.
I would like Tanczos to grab the green party by the throat as I have not been impressed by the current leadership there. Rod Donald is sorely missed.
There is an element of Rip van Winkle about Winston Peters – he only wakes up during elections and the news that he has been seen in media suggests there is an early election on the cards. I did read somewhere that the Rugby World Cup may impact on the election time table.
As for Don Brash. Seriously he should think about his voting record. He was beaten by Garry Knapp (Socred remember them ?) in a 1980 election for a formerly held National Seat in East Coats Bays. He did have a couple of lucky moments later on but how much of that was luck and how much back room deal making we don’t know.
I don’t think we will see a new right ring party although I never thought I’d see someone like Sarah Palin taken seriously either.
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Thanks Mark,
Fiji is on our doorstep and i dont now that full disclosure of all of the discussion around the politics would help.
I was being a bit facetious about the beaches but there are many reasons why it is better to sort out a workable scenario - govt to govt.
Sometimes a useful dialogue needs to be off the record.
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I'm pleased to see that the Guardian at least is attempting some kind of editorial filter on this. I do think there needs to be private and frank discussions and full disclosure of everything doesn't help anyone.
I do wonder how much of the embassey content is actually planted as misinformation & wishful thinking.
I posted about this below. I was wondering how New Zealand and Australia will look if / when discussions about the self appointed Fijian leader are made public.
Privately everyone accepts he is volatile and maybe not rational but realistically they have nice beaches and we still want to go there on holidays etc. so we need to be more circumspect and diplomatic in public.
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Hard News: Do you like what we've done…, in reply to Deborah,
Lets see how the nested comments look? - ok down the page - not nested - but can't have everything.
Having comments with posts is still a good move forward.