Hard News: Friday Music: A Life of Stories
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All great music events are vibrant at the time but they do need recording and it was great to hear stories at Songs of the City and now in the Simon Grigg book.
Music and mythology are strongly linked and reading about them later is a joy.
Most everyone in Auckland has a Graham Brazier story or two. Luke Hurley has shared a few snippets in this memory piece today
"Gossip is the devils radio" says Graham. Yes but with great stories...
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I remember that Shabba and co gig at the Academy, quite an experience, and still one of my most memorable live music experiences. And I was rather relieved also that you like the Miley Cyrus record,( your opinion does matters to me). more than a few people have been taken aback at my declaration of approval . Although the video for the single is pretty stupid, there is some great music on the album and listening to it has steered me back to some Flaming lips listening, which can't be a bad thing :-) Oh, and the Viv Albertine book is fantastic !!
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I remember that Shabba and co gig at the Academy, quite an experience, and still one of my most memorable live music experiences.
Some of the music was a bit ropey as I recall – Shinehead was terrible. But everything else – woah!
The rush on the doors happened right in front of us. So we stood back until order was eventually restored (the police wisely weren't getting involved) and then thought we might as well go in.
There was a major crush inside the doors, but we decided to head upstairs and discovered there were tons of unoccupied seats with a great view. Just as well, given that we had the two pregnant ladies with us!
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Graham Brazier speaking on behalf of Hello Sailor at their 2011 induction into the Music Hall of Fame (watch from 15:39)
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This is good: Emily Littler from Street Chant on why the difficult second album was so difficult.
She's a good writer and should write more.
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I love social history as a reading genre. And stories about the music of our times (and other times, natch), are fabulous social history when done properly (people, events, background, social context).
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My pregnant partner and I went to see Public Enemy at the Academy in the late eighties, brilliant. The gospel church opposite belted out some great tunes on the Sunday.
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Donna Mills' eulogy from Graham's service yesterday. Loving and lovely.
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The Singing, Laughing, Dancing ManWhat perfect fortune that I could mourn you in Italy. It was probably here that they found you, carved from the white marble mountain by Appolo himself. What sands did he use to blend that stone? Part Hero, part Bacchus, part Puck. A little fawn and a whole lot of bull !
We were so young and many others have followed who loved you too, friends, lovers, wives, children. Forgive me, all of you who may be more entitled than me to speak now.
But I was your first true love Graham, so I guess that gives me some right to speak at the last.
I remember you at 23, so much stillness and love in you. The way you tended your plants and knew the names of all the birds. You wouldn't touch alcohol then, you told me you didn't trust yourself to be able to stop, so you abstained altogether. You were so pure. You loved nature and walking on the beach and through the hills. You loved to be super fit and you could sing and paint and write poetry and how you could dance ! The dance floors we swept across! That was epic, to be in the arms of a strong, beautiful man who owns the dance floor with his rhythm and style and has eyes only for you.
You were so funny, just a big kid laughing all the time. The more I fell on the floor in hysterics with your daily pantomime and silly stories, the naughtier and sillier you became. Then the rushing river of mimicry and funny voices would stop and you would look up with that sheepish little grin, having surprised even yourself with what had just been let loose.
Most days you would take a 20 k run. Then, calmed by the exercise, you would sit with your guitar in your arms and just sing and play whatever was there in the ethers to be born. Many songs were never written down or recorded. Dave was the one who always saved your songs from disappearing. What would you have done without him ? He was always there for you. And it was only him who could get you to sing in the last years. With his gentle, smooth way, he could coax you back to the stage you loved and feared. You gave it so much but it always took more.
You were hopelessly unsuited to the modern world. When I met you, you couldn't use a bank or a post office, or even a phone book. You brought home your entire, unopened pay packet and gave it to me. You had no interest in such things.
My brother Phillip once thought he could teach you to drive. A mighty crashing and screeching of car wheels brought me running outside. There sat the two of you, in a sandstorm of laughter and smoke. You had smashed Phillips car right through the garage door of his LA apartment and into the car behind, squashing it with such force and keeping your foot on the accelerator for so long, both cars were crumpled to smithereens.
We never tried to teach you anything ever again. Anyway, you loved to walk.
So walk on love, you are free. You gave enough.
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I heartily recommend How Bizarre. As well as being a great pop biz story, it's extra special because it's our story - it's a New Zealand story. No one deliberately sets out to make a one-hit wonder, and because of that, the stories behind those blips of genius pop are often more interesting than tales of long-term success.
It's also a good account of how the music biz functioned 20 years ago. It seemed like such a major physical effort to break "How Bizarre" in every country, and it feels like much of the book takes place on long-haul flights.
Here's the video for "Team, Ball, Player, Thing", the delightfully good NZ RWC supporter's song (and it's in aid of Cure Kids). The song is written by Joel Little (and little kids), the video is by Taika Waititi and it features a really decent selection of NZ musos as well as some All Blacks. And unicorns with lasers.
In the UK, the media seem to have been sent a press release touting the song as starring "Lorde and Daniel Bedingfield". Well, you take what you can get.
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Ken Double, in reply to
I'm so glad we can have a laugh about the rugby now because, you know, there was a time......
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Someone must some day do a book of David Mitchell's posters and artwork...
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Shaun Scott, in reply to
Yes- it would be amazingly good. I remember reading an interview with him in _Critic_ in the early '90's where he mentioned he was drawing with his left hand to increase the challenge.
And- my god, what a great gig that poster advertises. Fantastic line-up.
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laugh about the rugby
Working on rugby OB's has to be the worst experience of my life.
I loathe the game, for that matter all televised sport.
You think heroin addiction is bad?It only really affect on person. Sport addiction is much much worse, whole populations lose their minds. and sanity. And we are cursed with sports personalities and commentators for years, till death!
Seek a cure you people -
Ken Double, in reply to
God's a left hander! Who'd have known it? That is God isn't it? Or is it Virgil? I can't tell them apart.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
Seek a cure you people
</not helping?>
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
And- my god, what a great gig that poster advertises. Fantastic line-up.
A soundtrack for David Mitchell's excellent image:
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Matthew Goody, in reply to
Someone must some day do a book of David Mitchell's posters and artwork...
Here here.
Ian, you put it together and I'll publish it.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
….I’ll publish it.
David Mitchell are you out there?
testing – one two – one two
use the wee envelope/email icon above
if you are or if anyone has a contact address
…could someone give him a nudge
- working title DM’s 2Ds
:- )After seeing the comic shops of France
(Great to see Hicksville there in French)
I reckon it’d be a nice little earner for him……that and the Chris Knox book and a Clean book
and a Flying Nun artwork book (along with your own new opus – Needles and Plastic* of course!) would make a great complementary selection to offer the world.*PS I note in the blurb there that you say Roger was a record store owner – I’m pretty sure he was only ever a manager – and that suits the working/middle class sub-narrative better in some ways, to my mind…
PPS I do hope the Double Happys and families are getting some recognition/kickback for supplying all these names for these linchpin Nun events (The Others Way, Needles and Plastic )
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"all great music events are vibrant at the time"
Yep, and every minute, somewhere , some band is the best in the world.Did anyone ever go to a concert by this band? Perhaps it is too long ago.
Audience accounts might make for some very funny reading.
The inside story is unique.
All of the core players are still with us ; it might be time to get out the type writer
Keith Newman? -
Farmer Green, in reply to
You think heroin addiction is bad?
Nothing worse than watching a former happy heroin user consigned to living out the rest of his days queuing for methadone.
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Farmer Green, in reply to
That was recorded at a Divine Light concert in the St James Theatre in Wellington , around 1976 from memory. Recording live was a big undertaking back then. Nowadays you can do the job with an i-Book on the lawn by the cowshed :-
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In fact you can do a reasonable job with just a video camera :-
https://www.facebook.com/174779355880271/videos/vb.174779355880271/185537144795239/?type=2&theater
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Russell Brown, in reply to
David Mitchell are you out there?
testing – one two – one two
use the wee envelope/email icon above
if you are or if anyone has a contact address
…could someone give him a nudge
- working title DM’s 2Ds
:- )I will obtain the relevant contact information and dispatch it to you and Matt.
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My attention has been drawn to the 2011 non-hit 'Grace' by the Scottish band The View.
Listen to the opening guitar and verse and tell me you don't hear 'Pull Down the Shades':
Crikey. I wonder how that happened?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Did anyone ever go to a concert by this band? Perhaps it is too long ago.
Audience accounts might make for some very funny reading.
The inside story is unique.
All of the core players are still with us ; it might be time to get out the type writer
Keith Newman?Nick Bollinger has written an Audioculture entry, but it's fairly straight-up.
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