Hard News: The best kind of villain there is
151 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 3 4 5 6 7 Newer→ Last
-
Oh and I meant to add Meat Puppets and Bad Brains to the above list of American bands.
The real point is that Kurt Cobain saw Nirvana as just one more band in that tradition, only they had the good/bad luck to become that much bigger. Hence the title The Year the Punk Broke -- after more than a decade of American hardcore and post-punk being a DIY independent label thing limited to small clubs and college towns, suddenly there was massive attention. But he was aware of all the history behind him and the work that people like Ian MacKaye, Jello Biafra and Greg Ginn had done.
-
Damn, that was lucid, Philip.
-
so a lot of 'honest' american punk bands wouldn't have made news here.
Although New Zealand was, I think, about the only place in the world where The Dead Kennedy's had a top 10 hit. We were funny like that back then, all these odd little leftfield tunes used to chart quite highly and infuriate commercial radio. Joy Division were a chart topping pop band in NZild
-
thanks, Simon, for the 1981 chart reference.
i remember hearing LWTUA on the radio in the 4th form, played on a non-student station only because it was No. 1 and the station did a weekly countdown. i heard it when i was at work, in a milk truck, on the way back to the depot to drop off the empty bottles. my boss said "whadja think o' that?" and i said "ah, not really sure". was way over my head. couldn't figure it out. but less than two years later when i heard Blue Monday... well i figured that out straight away. so over several weeks i bought every NO record i could find. and the last one i bought had this strange thing on the label: Ceremony (Joy Division). so i had to find out what was going on... never been the same since, really. :)anyway, well done to all the slightly older teenagers who bought all the JD singles in 81, forcing Ready to Roll play them!
-
anyway, well done to all the slightly older teenagers who bought all the JD singles in 81
You mean all those numbered limited edition of 2000 12"s? I always wondered in anyone ever knew anyone else who had the same number as them or if they craftily distributed these in differing centres to avoid that embarrassing potential problem.
When Atmosphere was #1 they had no video so they slowly rolled back and forth across the sleeve for a minute or so and then cut it.
The power behind these was a guy called Robin Lambert, manager of the Sounds Unlimited shop in lower Queen St. He was the absolute king of hype and could force a record into the top 5 by preselling huge quantities to the kids that just about lived in his store. The Joy Division charts were very much his doing. Robin would take 50% or more of a numbered edition arguing that he'd already sold them, and force the rest of the country to fight over the rest, causing a frenzy before it came out. The record companies loved him.
It's just that there were often far more copies of some of of these limited editions out there than was often admitted.
He drives a corporate cab these days I believe.
-
I remember those Joy Division at #1 moments. That Atmosphere video, as ad hoc as it was, was probably still better than the pretentious official one Anton Corbijn did years later. But for real out-there-ness I don't anything matched seeing the clip for Laurie Anderson's O Superman on -- I think but I might be wrong -- RTR.
Also, was completely remiss of me to talk about American punk rock before and not mention these guys. Definitely another one of the roads that lead to Nirvana.
-
the kids that just about lived in his store
haha... in 83-84, that was me :)
a lot of milk round wages ended up at that shop... -
Definitely another one of the roads that lead to Nirvana.
Another bigger in NZ than anywhere else band I think. Top 30 for Candy Apple Grey, not even in the US 100. We used to be quite adventurous in NZ and our charts showed it. Not so much now.
-
Sounds Unlimited
- the Imports of Being Earnest
aaah Robin Lambert, nice enough chap - but the bane of my Rip It Up ad deadlines - invariably the last one in and with hundreds of record listings that would never be finalised until the very last minute...
and then I'd have to go thru with the letraset© lines and scalpel and do the crossing out of the old prices - still it was nice to have a guaranteed full page ad each month... and I can't recall if it was Robin, or the guy at the Newmarket store who sent the Flying Nun NZ-only Fall Live LP, Fall in a Hole, in quantity over to the UK, which caused Mark E Smith to spit tacks and lose his rag with Chris and Roger...
...and where are Festival's Victor Stent and Simon B these days?...don't you eat that yellow snow!
Husky doo, er Hüsker Dü, I remember being
on Grunt Machine even, I think!
Bob Mould's Workbook still gets a good
go on my old tape deck... -
Simon B's building a hotel in Puerto Rico ..true, after years in the US recording industry managing or working for folks like Marilyn Manson & Trent Reznor.
He's well and seems very happy when we speak.
Oh, and Newmarket: King Exports
-
Bob Mould's Workbook
Lovely. -
WOW, just read this epic and thought i 'd share...
http://imomus.com/mclarencomplete.html
...now i'm wondering where the spirit of 77 is, who's got it and how is it expressed ?
-
Great link Robbie, that was fascinating, I ended up leaving work half an hour late reading it.
-
Hope you charged for overtime :)
heh...substitute the sex pistols and these last two lines could be me.
You were self-appointed, an arrogant angry young man. But what it really gave you was this ability to fail, and fail magnificently, as a noble pursuit, and never become a benign success. I think that's the essence of all the motivation.
Failure as something flamboyant and something very creative, something that allows you to do things new, that otherwise you wouldn't. It allows you to be stupid, really. And it allows you, by doing that, to control your own stupidity and make something brilliant out of it. And the failure is really the success, actually. And that's what the Sex Pistols, for me, was about. The success was in the failure. Almost programmed into it, in a funny way. Looking back, every decision I made was one of utter mismanagement! Ha ha ha ha ha!
-
The power behind these was a guy called Robin Lambert, manager of the Sounds Unlimited shop in lower Queen St.
Where I bought my first record. Joy Division Closer. Luckily I put the Duran Duran one back.
-
Sounds Unlimited
- the Imports of Being Earnest
aaah Robin Lambert, nice enough chap - but the bane of my Rip It Up ad deadlines - invariably the last one in and with hundreds of record listings that would never be finalised until the very last minute...Ah yes, I remember that. He took an ad every month, which was good, but I remember it driving you and Murray nuts.
-
I bought my first record. Joy Division Closer.
Luckily I put the Duran Duran one back.Sure sounds like one of those life-changing decisions..
-
Sure sounds like one of those life-changing decisions..
But a decision made by lots of people around 1980. I was told yesterday by a guy who runs the Factory site that he believed that NZ sold more Joy Division records per head than anywhere else, and we were the first to get a gold record with Blue Monday.
To borrow Jules Holland's infamous getting the sack from The Tube moment, we were groovy fuckers.
And still are. I think there is more interesting music consumed around the edge (maybe not in the centre so much anymore) in NZ than anywhere else I've ever been.
The range of good music (and no, it's not in the ear of the beholder, there are some absolutes when it comes to music ;) ) consumed in NZ always astounds me, for such a tiny nation.
-
Anyway, a lot of the American stuff I mentioned was completely against the mentality of southern cracka skinheads you mention, and probably more politically left than most British punk bands. It doesn't mean they didn't draw that skinhead crowd who were looking for some of that aggression, but the bands weren't courting it. New Zealand punk and post-punk in the 80s had the same kind of skinhead problem.
Bang on, absolutely. Some people badly misinterpreted Nomeansno's Sex, Cats and Nazis and missed the point the band's very name is feminist graffiti.
Movie on the Vancouver punk scene here
-
I think there is more interesting music consumed around the edge (maybe not in the centre so much anymore) in NZ than anywhere else
...and i'd venture to say, produced around the edge as well. If only NZoA recognized that beyond its narrow video/recording funding scope towards commercially viable stuff for radio.
The amount of extraordinary tunes and songs worthy of complementary visual artistic representation now consigned to just aural history at the expense of fly by night one hit popstar wannabes really shits me.
-
Agree. I understand the arguments for commercial leverage and a single-minded focus on radio airplay when NZonAir was established.
But really, like so many govt schemes it amounts to corporate welfare - public funding for the industry (labels, radio) but not necessarily the creators. And this artform is mostly ignored by "arts" funders too.
Times have changed and so have the channels musicians can use to reach a lucrative audience and to carve out a cultural presence for our nation in the world. No reason why clips posted online for self-produced music shouldn't also qualify, for instance.
-
The amount of extraordinary tunes and songs worthy of complementary visual artistic representation now consigned to just aural history at the expense of fly by night one hit popstar wannabes really shits me.
I could've written that 30 years ago but then the gateway was controlled by the NZBC studios in Avalon.
Then, when they did give us money we'd do things like film (fake) bodies being thrown off Grafton Bridge, so I guess they may have had a point ;)
But when we let them do it, they'd want to do things like painting guitars on the guitarist's naked chest (rejected Screaming Meemees video script from Andy Shaw).
-
But when we let them do it, they'd want to do things like painting guitars on the guitarist's naked chest (rejected Screaming Meemees video script from Andy Shaw).
Ah, right...
-
Andy Shaw
Tasteful chap
-
How hard would it be for creators and knowledgeable curators to use social technology to make collective decisions about who gets a share of the funding pool, recognising both previous efforts and future potential.
Not a cosy little group, but not beyond those who have some qualified expertise about the form/s being considered either - including the commercial side. Perhaps an audience vote, but I wouldn't want that to be the dominant factor either.
Been done already anywhere?
Post your response…
This topic is closed.