Hard News by Russell Brown

Sad to hear about Jim Laing - he was in one of my chemistry classes back in the day. Great guitarist (I loved the fuzzy feedback of Einstein) plus he got to sing vox on a number of JPSE tracks incl. I Like Rain

Are there women you need to listen to? Guys you should keep a better eye on? Things you should say?

We all need to take responsibility for this.

yes

Take a humungous bite out of the Big Apple Russell and look forward to reading all about it when you are back.

Peter McLennan's national Record Store day roundup.

So sad to hear about Jim Laing, the Loving Grapevine loses another vintage...

I had a number of mutual Facebook friends with Andrew Tidball. It was interesting watching the numbers drop down in the first 24-36 hours after the Spinoff piece was published.

What is said to have happened, happened in music's own spaces – starting with the much-loved bulletin board NZMusic.com. A shared passion for music became a pretext for predation.

Is that why the site closed down? I always wondered why it disappeared all of a sudden.

yes

Thanks.

Read the Spinoff piece. Christ.

I was a core member of NZM from approx. 1999 (age 14) - 2004. Have a suspicion that I know/knew at least one of the girls in the story. And I certainly remember the user geekboy.

My NZM participation was a truly formative experience, and it's sickening to know this happened in that seemingly-benign space.

Robyn has ya covered

http://robyngallagher.com/tag/nzmusic-com/

was a great site, sad to see the community was abused in such a manner

Is that why the site closed down?

No, nothing like that, it just ran its course. None of the admins knew anything about Tidball.

Is that why the site closed down? I always wondered why it disappeared all of a sudden.

The closing of NZmusic.com had nothing to do with the Tidball issue. I believe he hadn’t been active on the site for many years prior to it closing, with his online focus moving to his own website when that launched in 2003. Even at NZM’s peak in the early to mid 2000s, Tidball’s actions were certainly not well known amongst the general NZM user base – most of us only found out about it this week.

To my knowledge, NZM closed because it had just fallen out of popularity. Like a lot of websites originating from the early 2000s, NZM had been superseded by the role of social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Edit: What Heather said too :)

I really want to say that NZmusic was a great site, and I only ever had positive experiences from it. But I was a scary nerdy rock chick in my late 20s, not a young teen.

The NZM community was brilliant, and I loved that some teen could get into a discussion with a proper rock star about technical drum issues. It was a place where you could find someone else who was as much of a fan of your favourite band as you were - even if literally no one else knew who the band was.

If there's anything positive coming out of this, it's that we are talking about this and thinking how it applies to situations we're in today, not just stuff that happened in the 2000s. I broke my heart to hear what had been going on, and it's made me think about situations in online communities that I'm currently involved with and what I can do to help prevent another type of situation like this.

it's made me think about situations in online communities that I'm currently involved with and what I can do to help prevent another type of situation like this.

Yup, this. As I've said before things are ugly all over the place and we need to get better at paying attention. I think Thomas Beagle's tweet on this is a pretty good starting point - "Based on tonight's story and others, I'm now upgrading "slightly sleazy behaviour to young women" from "warning light" to "loud klaxon".

And When The Creeper Is Your Mate is pretty essential reading too.

Thanks for responding Bob, Heather, and Robyn.

Have a sensational time in old new York Russell, look forward to hearing all about it.

Alan Perrott on The Spinoff: Bum note: how Record Store Day lost its cool

I kinda agree and disagree. It's notable that stores in Auckland have downplayed the international RSD releases in favour of just one or two local ones – or none. Why wouldn't you drop into Flying Out to see Peter Jefferies and Jed Town play? Delaney Davidson and fresh baking at Southbound? Dubhead and friends, chips and discounts at Rebel Soul? Band and face=painting for the kids at Real Groovy? It seems like a nice day to visit those places.

We've done a post on all the stuff going on in Ōtautahi including some quotes from Dave at Galaxy and Garry at Penny Lane. There's also a special vinyl record cutting event on Friday 15 April at 12pm at the Canterbury Museum as part of their Exhibition “Alternative Radio: RDU98.5FM since 1976”.

I see what the local stores are doing as the most positive thing for the ongoing nature of the day - making it about the stores and putting on a great day

it was and always should have been Record Store Day not record release day, the exclusives took over much to the dismay of all bar a few profiteers

well done local stores!

Nelson has a second records sale to go with tunes and a pint of your fine craft ale at Rhythm & Brown on New Street from 4.00pm.

Prince, too early bro.