Hard News by Russell Brown

Given it's a Friday and the custom is to link, chat and the like, I'm going to blow my own horn and recommend people go to Twitter and search/follow the #twecon hashtag. I'm running a little social media experiment; a Twitter-based conference where the papers must be six tweets or less. We've already had some good papers and there are more to be delivered before the end of the day.

Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom!

Too slow for tickets to the Wellington gig… cest la vie :)

This week I finally got my mitts on Grayson Gilmour’s No Constellation – it came out in May but there seemed to be a big holdup getting the vinyl pressed.

Buy it on disk and they’re kind enough to also give out a lossless download.

None of this is to deny that Mikey has sometimes driven me nuts as a listener...

I had the misfortune of stumbling upon his "chats" with Simon Praast a few months ago. I'm reasonably sure my ears still haven't forgiven me.

Oh, I do love him. Which is a bit strange, considering that I don't listen to BFM. There's only so much obscure and loud and yoof music I can listen to, before my ears shoot off my head in flames. I wish him very, very well in his future endeavours. Stay curly and cheeky, Mike. I like them that way.

Yeah, ciao bella Mikey (it's the hair). It's been real. Have enjoyed his most recent stint on drive, and as you say, Vince is a discovery.

Missing the BDO next year, so here's some Bobbie Gillespie with French group Turzi, Baltimore.

Lovelock remix on Soundcloud ain't half bad either.

I had the misfortune of stumbling upon his "chats" with Simon Praast a few months ago. I'm reasonably sure my ears still haven't forgiven me.

They tended to induce me to shout at the radio, then turn it off for the sake of my family.

They tended to induce me to shout at the radio, then turn it off for the sake of my family.

But as a mayoral campaign strategy, it was instant satire, after you regained consciousness from hitting your head on something hard.

Mikey is kaleidoscopic. The seemingly arbitrary havoc of music and talk tumbles and whirls across the airwaves then reassembles as a quite uplifting whole.
The fractured, imperfect moments only add to the beauty of the pattern.
I tend to come away from listening to his shows feeling better; much as I do after my daily dose of kaleidoscope viewing time.

Maybe Mikey will be the new TV One Breakfast host?

Maybe Mikey will be the new Close Up host?

tended to induce me to shout at the radio

oh how I'll miss him

induce me to shout at the radio

particularly when he constantly talked over songs, took calls to air over songs. However it sure is an end of an era.

Doesn't Hauraki have a free slot now? Where that Staples chappie was going to do whatever it is these shock-jock types do when they're not getting righteously smacked down?

Wouldn't be surprised to see Mikey pop up again there.

C'mon, I'm sure the man has enough musical taste to not tolerate the Hauraki playlist of the more tedious MOR from the 50's, 60's and 70's.

(Or can one do radio announcing without listening to the music, or whilst listening to entirely different music? Can't see why not, technically).

the Hauraki playlist of the more tedious MOR from the 50's, 60's and 70's.

They no longer play any '50s to speak of, and play not much '60s gear either.

Current format seems to be largely a mix of '70s/'80s "classic rock" and the very worst of '90s/'00s post-grunge kind of thing, and even then, only ever those that charted.

Definitely a vast amount of room for improvement, even within that format.

The end of an era. I was constantly late for work because I just had to listen to the last few minutes before running in to the radio station I worked for.....turned on to bFM through someone who worked for yet another radio station, and have been a listener since then. Car radio permanently tuned to it, except for hard, fast and heavy things which made my ears bleed (quickly switched to Concert).

I was around twenty minutes late one morning when Havoc had a small girl in the studio. He "interviewed" her, and no kidding, it was one of the best sequences I have ever had the fortune to hear. Looooonnnnnggg silences as he waited for her to finish colouring in whatever picture she was also working on. Absolutely no condescension. It was totally priceless.

Usually loved his music to boot. AND, although it was probably highly improper due to rights, his penchant for playing Bill Bryson reading his own writing opened the door for me with that writer. Wonderful, innovative, funny - I'll miss him so much.

They no longer play any '50s to speak of, and play not much '60s gear either.

I think Hauraki still plays a Hendrix song most days and that's pretty much it for the '60s stuff as far as I can tell.

I wish 'classic' stations weren't so depressing and repetitive. There's such a goldmine of incredible things they *could* be playing. They somehow manage to cut down their playlist to about 50 older songs, and they make everything sound rinky-dinky and nostalgic when it could be weird or awesome. Meh.

Word, Danielle. That's what I meant by "[d]efinitely a vast amount of room for improvement". You've got to wonder what the point is in having a playlist that's probably less exiting than the average listener's CD collection.

Meh.

Maybe I needed to listen to the whole thing, but this was my general feeling on Friday evening. Something something something 'not with a bang but a whimper'.

Perhaps there will by more. More FM? Heaven forfend!

They no longer play any '50s to speak of, and play not much '60s gear either.

I believe Solid Gold FM has picked up the mantle - of sorts.

I wish ‘classic’ stations weren’t so depressing and repetitive. There’s such a goldmine of incredible things they *could* be playing.

Now, I may possibly be alone in this - but if we could somehow stir together the best bits (there’s usually plenty of them) of RNZ’s Wayne’s Music and Saturday Night Requests shows, and run it all 24 hours on actual stereo FM… well.

I ended up listening to Hauraki a reasonable amount in the evenings recently when I'm playing with my daughter and can't be arsed firing up the stereo. Less swearing than Bfm, the music wasn't as teeth-grindingly annoying as the yoof-oriented commercial stations, and the DJ's were slightly less annoying, too.

But I stopped when I realised that their playlist would more or less have a secondary function as a sort of speaking clock.

When you. Hear. The opening bars. Of. 'Shine on you crazy diamond', the time will be. 6.40pm. Precisely.

When you. Hear. The opening bars. Of. Any recent Chilli Peppers (but none of the older stuff). The time. Will be. 7.05pm. Preceisely.

When you. Hear. The opening bars. Of. 'Hotel California'. The time. Will be. Any of. 8.42am. Or 10.12am. Or 12.02pm. Or (repeat ad nauseam, just like Hotel California).