Anyway, if you'd like to cram before the jam, the promoters have kindly offered a prize pack of Ben Goldacre's three books for me to give away:
To be in for the prize pack, you need only email me using the button at the bottom of this post with "Books" as the subject line. I'll draw a winner in a couple of days' time.
But there's one more thing: a number of people from the autism community have expressed interest in hearing Ben speak, not least because of his role in bringing the dreadful Andrew Wakefield to account.
I know not everyone in that community can easily afford what isn't a cheap ticket. So I talked to the promoters and they have kindly offered to make available 20 tickets at a reduced rate ($59 + booking fee, the same as the student discount).
The discount can be claimed by emailing me via the button at the bottom of this post with "Neurodiverse" as the subject line. I'll then send you a code to use when you buy your tickets.
Now, I thought about how to do this and decided the best thing was to simply do it on trust. The discount is intended for ASD people themselves, but I'm happy to consider a request from supporters and family.
After a smashing session on the state of journalism, ORCON IRL AT THE GOLDEN DAWN is back next Tuesday – and this time we’re taking on democracy!
ORCON IRL VOTE AUCKLAND presents:
Efeso Collins Chloe Swarbrick Cathy Casey Paula Bold-Wilson Bill Ralston Chang Hung Patrick Reynolds
CO-HOSTS: Russell Brown and Charlotte Ryan
SPECIAL GUEST DJ: Anthonie Tonnon
“We wanted to cover the local body elections in a way that people could engage with,” says Russell Brown. “We clearly couldn’t accommodate every candidate or commentator, so we’ve gone for interesting people. Unfortunately, this decision ruled out all the 2016 mayoral candidates bar Chloe Swarbrick.
“We’re delighted to offer a warm Ponsonby welcome to Ōtara-Papatoetoe local board chair Efeso Collins and Paula Bold-Wilson, one of an unprecedented four Māori candidates standing for the Henderson-Massey local board. And we’re pleased to have local lad Bill Ralston, who is standing for Auckland Council in the keenly-contested Prego ward.
“They’re joined by Albert-Eden-Roskill councillor Cathy Casey – whose daughter Alex starred in last month’s IRL – broadcast jester Chang Hung, whose bid for the Waitemata local board is quite serious, and transport troublemaker Patrick Reynolds.
"The breaks will be filled by DJ sets from Anthonie Tonnon, who has written more songs about local body politics than anyone in the history of New Zealand music, probably. And to cap it all off – we’ve brought Charlotte Ryan out of media retirement!"
WHAT: Orcon IRL Vote Auckland
WHERE: The Golden Dawn Tavern of Power, Ponsonby
WHEN: Tuesday September 20, 6.30pm-9pm.
LIVE ON THE INTERNET COURTESY: 95bFM and Hugh’s team of cybernetic helper-elves
I was fortunate enough last night to see One More Time With Feeling, the unusual documentary created to serve as a once-only interview in advance of the release of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' new album, Skeleton Tree.
The backdrop to the album is the death of Cave's teenage son Arthur, and the British media orgy that followed, amplifying and multiplying a family trauma. The thinking behind the film – financed by Cave himself and directed by fellow Australian Andrew Dominik – was to talk about it once, and not have to traverse it endlessly in press for the album, inevitably reducing the whole thing to rote answers.
Strikingly, for nearly two thirds of the film, they don't directly talk about it. Indeed, if you went in without knowing the story, you'd end up as bemused as the Variety reviewer who complains about "this dithering" and ventures that "something seems amiss" in in Cave "never remotely confronting the issue of whether he feels in any way responsible for the death of Arthur".
There was course, no end of public commentary on Cave's alleged responsibility for his son's death after Arthur fell from a cliff after taking LSD – among other things, Cave watching horror movies with his kids was cited in a vile story in The Times – and Variety's hapless tut-tutting merely rehearses the unpleasantness the family has had to bear.
The rest of us went in with more open hearts. It's awkward for everyone, and Dominik contrived to underline that awkwardness by deciding to shoot not only in black and white, but in 3D. The film deliberately breaks itself in its opening minute, when the unreliable 3D camera fails as Cave's bandmate Warren Ellis attempts to explain what his friend has endured.
Eventually, the first of five songs from the album, 'Jesus Alone', plays. Dominik captures not the original writing-recording process, to which he doesn't seem to have been privy, but a pick-up vocal that Cave clearly struggles to muster. There are long minutes of self-doubt, sitting at the piano, before he sings it. He's vulnerable.
The song, when it comes, is cavernous, dissonant, haunting, and Dominik's direction makes it even more those things. I found it an affecting, slightly disorienting experience in 2D and I imagine it must have been more so in 3D (on the other hand, I feel like wearing 3D glasses would have been difficult, as if something was in the way). The juxtaposition of this lush choreography and the observational sequences – they're fucked up sometimes, because everything is fucked up – is central to the film.
"I'm not sure about the songs," Cave remarks at one point, explaining that he and the band simply had to let them go forth. You can sense it: there's an artlessness in places you don't usually hear in Cave's work. He repeats a line because he doesn't have one to follow, leaves in one that scans awkwardly.
Ultimately, it's a film about grief, which compels Cave's fashion-designer wife Susie Bick into creative work when she doesn't even know why, but proves impractical as material for Cave himself. It's just too big, too awful.
One More Time With Feeling is remarkable, awkward, beautiful, moving. Most people in the theatre seemed gobsmacked afterwards. About half of us stayed in our seats right through to the end of the credits.
In theory, the film had its first and only screening in cinemas all over the world last night. But you'd think it might come back. If it does, and you feel something for Nick Cave's work, you might want to see it.
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There was a loss closer to home last week. Stephen O'Hoy died after suffering a brain aneurysm. I first got to know Stephen when he helped sell my Great New Zealand Argument book while he was working at Amplifier, where he helped many local labels and artists to get their music on the internet for the first time. (Before that, he managed One Million Dollars, and there some laughs at the wake about the kind of person who would take on managing a 12-piece funk band.)
Stephen was Australian-born, of Chinese heritage (he was often mistaken for Pasifika). He was clever, kind, funny and – this word has come up a lot in the past week – gentlemanly. His wife Ros and their daughters have suffered a terrible loss. And the local music community has lost one of the good men too.
You can get a sense of Stephen's musical identity via his turn on the Music 101 Mixtape:
RIP, Stephen.
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I heard the news about Stephen standing on K Road last Friday night in the midst of The Others Way festival, on what was otherwise a marvellous night. The evening began for me with an enjoyable onstage interview with Roger Shepherd about In Love With TheseTimes: A Flying Nun memoir, in the fale at Samoa House.
From there, I saw Nadia Reid (new songs!), Voom (who were in great form), Hex (a heavy, awesome all-woman power trio from Wellington), Shocking Pinks (brilliantly rhythmic), Yoko Zuna (a surprise funky party, especially when Randa got on the mic), David Kilgour (good, but a little down on atmopshere compared to some of the other shows), King Loser (at once comedic and compelling), Ghost Wave (now evolved to stoner electronica, and quite unlike anything else on that night) and The Phoenix Foundation (who clearly had a magnificent time, ending with a very raucous version of 'Buffalo').
But it wasn't just the bands, it was the people. The atmosphere was great, like a big party up and down the strip. And I think you only get that when you get a lot of little things right.
But for all that, Ben Howe at Flying Out isn't sure whether The Others Way will be back in 2017. It's an enormous amount of work for a very slim margin and the festival needs external support to continue – probably from both council and commercial sponsors. I hope that happens and I'm happy to lend my support to anything that will help it happen.
I took some pictures. Here's Buzz from Voom:
Shocking Pinks:
Hex:
The Phoenix Foundation:
And a still from Stuart Page's shooting for Amdrew Moore's King Loser Loser doco:
Although I maintain my King Loser pic is also an accurate representation of the vibe:
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Meanwhile, Ben's former business partner in Auckland Laneway festival, Mark Kneebone – who was there enjoying himself on Friday night – had some happy news to share this week. Laneway has a new site: Albert Park, Princes Street and Alfred Street, with the main stage on Princes Street. The new site is 75% bigger than the Wynyard one, but the crowd limit will remain the same at around 12,000.
It promises to be a much more comfortable experience – and there's a symmetry there, given that the Lantern Festival has vacated the same precinct in favour of The Domain, where Laneway thought they were going to be able to go this year, leaving them in danger of not having an Auckland site at all.
Mark shared the news with me a couple of weeks ago, when I was at Mamata on the Saturday-morning bagel run (Mark had a pie) and he said that it hadn't been easy to secure the site – and that the person who'd done more than anyone to get the festival over the line was Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye.
I gather she was keener to make the case on the basis of the employment and economic impact of the the festival rather than the intrisic merit of people dancing in the streets, but all praise to her for helping.
And ... Ben King recently shared on Facebook part one (the other 17 parts are on YouTube too) of the 1989 "documentary" Hells Bells: The Dangers of Rock 'N' Roll, which is described as a "journey thru the dark side of Rock 'n' Roll music and its negative influence on society from a Christian perspective."
I had assumed that this sort of thing was confined to certain states in America, but Ben's school screened it to puzzled students and it appears that many others did too. How very, very strange. Also, it appears to have been singularly unsuccessful in deterring young folk from embracing the Devil's music.
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Tunes!
Leisure build up towards their alvbum release with another sleek single.
The Roulettes' new single has been compared, I gather, to Brough-era Straitjacket Fits – and yeah, it's got the slow burn and the sweet vocal allright. You can buy it for a dollar here on Bandcamp.
This is a mash-up that works: Jamie Xx's 'Good Times' vs the Dre Skull remix.
And finally ... don't forget that I and a few other people will be selling vinyl from our archives at Southbound Records in Symonds Street from nine till noon tomorrow. I'll have interesting dance 12"s, some rare indie 7"s, randcom albums and the odd original Flying Nun gem. All fees go to 95bFM's Bombathon fundraiser.
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The Hard News Friday Music Post is kindly sponsored by:
In an era where almost everyone has access to the tools to speak to almost everyone inclined to listen, it's easy to forget that not so long ago, the reins of broadcast communication were tightly held by the state. It wasn't until 1970 that Radio Hauraki was permitted a licence, ending a long state monopoly on radio. And even after that, it was literally an offence to express a controversial opinion on the radio.
Many of us have some idea of the Hauraki story. But there's another story of radio rebellion: one that went on longer, whose protagonists stuck to their guns, and which in many ways had a more profound impact. It's the story of Radio B and bFM.
Audioculture today publishes two articles that tell the beginning of that story – much of which has been forgotten, some of which has never been told until now.
One, The First 10 Years, tells the story of Auckland University's rebellious radio station and the furry freaks who established it and eventually succeeded – beating out Radio Rhema in the process – in gaining New Zealand's first temporary broadcast licence. (Amazingly, even then, they had to put up a $50,000 bond against the risk that they might swear.)
The other one is The Pirate Story. It's about a series of illegal broadcasts that ran, first in AM then in FM, from 1972 to 1980. The perpetrators surrendered the odd transmitter, but they were never caught – and it wasn't for lack of trying. There were raids on the university, plainclothes police, teams of Post Office inspectors and spectacular escapes; questions in Parliament and prosecutions in court.
The two artices are founded in a remarkable clippings file sent to 95bFM in 1992 by one of the pirates (and hence one of the "official" 1970s Radio B crew), Robert Gordon – and thence forgotten until the present 95bFM general manager Hugh Sundae arrived and had some volunteers look in the loft. Robert, who now lives in Wellington, also provided most of the photos and much of the background information for the articles.
He also helped me identify the ringleader of the piracy: a man who has since been honoured with the New Zealand Order of Merit and a Radio Award for services to broadcastng.
Although the more sensational part of the story lies in the first illicit AM transmissions, the subsequent pirate FM broadcasts were actually more influential. New Zealand in the 1970s was one of the last developed countries whose citizens were not able to listen to the radio in FM. The students campaigned on FM – on one occasion firing up a transmitter in Wellington and aiming it at Parliament – and did more than anyone to make the lack of FM an issue.
They also did another thing: played good music. For all that we recall the Hauraki story, the music it was founded turned to more conservative fare in the years after it was granted permission to broadcast. And while Hauraki's management strongly opposed Radio B's applications for a temporary licence, Hauraki's own DJs secretly did shows on the pirate station (then called Radio U) as a form of protest at what they had to play on the job. By the time of the final FM escapade in 1980, hosts from both private and public radio queued up to do pirate shows.
When FM finally did arrive in the 1980s, some of the same tensions came into play. But that's another story – one I'm researching for another Audioculture article.
For now: thanks so much to Robert Gordon and the other people I contacted (including those I didn't have space to quote in the stories): Julie Pendray, Glenn Smith, Tim Stanton, John Sweetman, Stuart Dryburgh (yes, that Stuart Dryburgh) and others. You all helped make the culture.
And in the meantime, you, the reader, might have a moment to consider the contribition this enterprise has made and the new challenges it faces in 2016 – and chip in a litte to 95bFM's Bombathon fundraiser. It's still independent media, after all this time.
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And now, here is a picture of a pirate radio transmitter:
As these things always do, the Waterview Connection seemed a long way off when preparatory works began more than five years ago. Suddenly, the giant on the edge of our suburb – the largest roading project in New Zeaand history – will be open for traffic before the coming summer fades.
With that prospect comes a keener focus on things like induced demand, additional cost in maintaining and operating the motorway network and, as a recent Transportblog post noted, previously unannounced (and costly) proposals to mitigate for the new traffic flows. Just as the works at St Lukes Road have been more vexing for people on our side of the motorway than the big dig, I can see congestion – both ways – between the city and Waterview being an issue.
On the other hand, there are many interesting (and sometimes beneficial) changes around Waterview itself – some of them the doing of the Board of Inquiry that ruled on the respective interests of NZTA and local residents.
NZTA has just published its September update on the works and it contains relevant information, but the images are fairly crappy. I had a ride around the area last week and took photographs where I could. There were places where I couldn't – they've made it hard to get a picture of the northern portal – but I got enough to provide a picture of the area.
Please feel free to add your own links and images (you can upload images using the "choose file" button, and post as many as three in one comment by going back in using the edit function).
