Speaker: Good Times on High Street
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(very awesome) guitarist was flown of to LA to session on Tim Finn's "Persuasion" single. The lead break is very crisp
I always liked that solo! I must dig it out when I get home tonight...
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I used to hang out there far too much. I flatted with Jmmy Joy and that's how I met Simon in1987. Jimmy dragged me up to The Playground and then Berlin and then The Siren - it was like the scene just jumped clubs every six months. Then I shifted into a flat downstairs from Sasi who worked on the door at the Siren and we'd go there almost every night. We'd head to Roma a bit too, but the scene that ran the first big dance parties really revolved around High Street. De Bretts Corner Bar was the focal point. I went to Christchurch for 3 years and met up with Fish when he was setting up the Worcester Bar at Noahs and saw Greg Churchill play his first gigs there. He's still awesome. Then i came back in 1991 and hung out at The Box and Cause Celebre almost every night until 1996, when I emigrated to Wellington. Squid and The Dragon Bar were the other clubs that drew similar punters. De Bretts was asset stripped by Ken Chambers and turned into a back packers and it was like the guts being ripped out of the scene. The Escape Club and Galatos both arrived with the latter bringing the scene to K Rd mirrored by clubs like Staircase. I'd go dancing at The Box for 6 hours and then stand outside to cool down and have these drunken rambling conversations with Simon, Soane & Tim until closing. On other nights we'd play pool and drink Kevin's cocktails while listening to Nathan & Joel. We smoked a lot of weed and took acid but it was a much different scene to today's. We'd go out and get wasted sometimes but never got wasted to go out. I saw Kevin a couple of years ago and he was running functions on a boat from Princes Wharf and looked happy, dapper and much the same. I first met him at Le Bom. He was a touch of class - as where all of the crew that worked at The Box & Cause Celebre BITD...
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Zanzibaar. i loved that place.
it was Clive's baby but Mark&Peter, Simon, Roger, et al used to do great ealry sets before Clive spun the discs.the thing about Zanzibaar that i really liked was that it inherrited two separate strands of the dance scene and in AK with wicked results. IIRC, A Certain Bar was going on downstairs at the DB while Clive was doing his 70s disco-inspired stuff upstairs at the same time. ACB was mainly post-punk and white, while Clive's crowd was largely (but not all) brown and more US music focused.
IMO, Six Month Club, the Civic clubs, Nelson St. clubs and Asylum were all inheritors of what started at the DB and then Zanzibaar.
And of course Box/CC. great place. had forgotten all about the Hat. Great place.
(can i also put in a little plug for the original Quays? especially in its early incarnation 83/84. we went there (and the Venue) a fair amount. and Mainstreet when they had underage gigs :-)
p.p.s. and my sister would mention the Peppermill, which had a resident band around 82-83: Ardijah.
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while we're reminiscing can I tip my hat to DJ Big Matt's nights at the Monitor Room on Lorne St?
top, top bloke and top toons.
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great music and door policy (shorts friendly)... just how a club should be.
Great post thanks Simon
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Not sure why I never came more often. Remember visiting all those clubs with Jenny Brown (RIP) and feel privileged to have experienced a snippet of Auckland's history.
Looking forward to the night - book me a couple of tickets!
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Awesome. My fave is when Bono came to the door and was told "$5". And his handler said "Don't you know who this is?" to which he was told, "Yeah I know who he is. $5".
Thanks for the oasis in a world of drab.... -
I have fond memories, although I didn't get along as much as I would have liked. Although not ostensibly gay, it was queer-friendly and had waaaaay better sounds than dumps like Alfies, whether on the Cause Celebre or Box side.
Glad to see you're getting Rob and Manuel on deck for the reunion (and everyone else!)
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once dedicated a song to me in 1998, during Beats Per Minute, when I was in Baton Rouge and very homesick, listening on the tubes. Thanks dude. :)
A pleasure. I was, as I remember, pretty impressed that anyone could pick us up in Baton Rouge. This was, after all, 1998 and we'd had a couple of calls from Sydney and we had Wellington listeners but streaming on dial up required dedication.
Although not ostensibly gay, it was queer-friendly
It wasn't something we'd consciously tried to be..we just opened our doors to people who we thought would be comfortable around the people we liked and wanted to mix with, regardless of their sexuality, and blocked those who had a problem with that. The barrier was always if you made other people uncomfortable we didn't want you, and a lot of the people I've worked, played and been close to over the years are gay.
Mostly we were extra-ordinarily lucky with the people we had protecting our door, with the late Roseti Tanoi being the godfather and tutor to them all. Most of the generation of smart, non-aggressive and in-touch doormen that dominated the better clubs in Auckland from the mid nineties onwards owe him a debt (and happily admit it).
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@Robert. Yes it's a true story (although it was Jagger) but Rosetti said ""Yeah I know who he is, and he can afford it. $5"
I love the Bruno Lawrence story. Bruno was often down at Celebre on a Weds or Thurs, usually with John Dix. Very late one quiet night we were downstairs and the top door was shut...you rang the bell to get in. The bell went and Tom went up. It was Bruno, in filthy paint covered clothes and workboots. Tom said "Bruno you can't come in here dressed like that" and shut the door.
Two minutes later the bell went and Tom went back up. There was Bruno completely naked asking if this was better....
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As an addendum to Grigg's post I should also note that they also allowed 'club promoters' such as myself to flourish. We could book the venue for a very nominal fee and then run our own 'one-off' club night at their venue. If you tried booking another club for the same thing they'd charge you an arm and a leg. Upfront.
Simon, Tom & Co 'got' what a onenighter was and allowed myself and many others to stage them there over the years. That mine were hugely successful helped of course, but they also supported lesser/more obscure genres that pulled fewer numbers but were still considered part of clubland's rich tapestry.
I did my first one with Manuel Bundy in ... in ... 1991? called Disco Inferno which was a 70s funk/disco revival. In 1994 I got married and booked the club for my wedding after-party. To pay for my honeymoon I charged punters to come into Box (calling the party Retro - the first of the 80s revivals) whilst my guests enjoyed the private luxury of Cause Celebre. By midnite the Box was jammed and Tom asked me what I wanted to do. Ever the capitalist I said let 'em into Celeb. So we did. My parents had no idea and thought all those drag queens were my friends (as they became, actually) and the (unknowing) punters complimented my wife on wearing a wedding dress to a club.
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I loved how on the dancefloor people would scream euphorically at the top of their lungs or belt out a 'YEEEEAAAH! or 'WOOOOOO!'' every time a good vocal came in or wicked bassline dropped in the song.
Such a cool, passionate crowd at the Box.
That vibe is still unmatched to this day in other clubs.. -
wicked bassline
We named the June night Take Me Back, after the Rhythmatic 12" of the same name on Warp in 1990. We'd had to stop playing it after we worked out that it was the massive subsonic bassline in that track, which was such an anthem that year, and the whoops it drew, that were drawing the noise complaints from the people a block and a street away on the other side of Queen St.
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Ah, AK79. No finer commute song as the Transbay bus travels between Oakland and San Francisco than Proud Scum's Suicide! That beat is just made for bridge struts passing by. I'd post a video on YouTube to prove it but I'd just get done for copyright infringement, I suppose. :)
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There was a story around at the time that Billy Idol was refused entry to Box / Celeb. Would be interested to know if that was true or the a retread of the Jagger story.
I was at A Certain Bar, Zanzibar and Box/ Celeb often enough. The Hat barmam was a real star and worth a visit just to see him in action.
My best night though was watching Nathan Haines play with a probably Freebass / although it could have been the Enforcers and talking with Mark Phillips who was there and buzzing about some Japanese discovery. I think that was United Future Organisation?
I think that was the first time I saw live music mixed with turntables.
I stil have a copy of the Huh compilation "The New Groove" which I believe was one of the spinouts from the clubs.
I remember thinking at the time how lucky I felt to be listening to Nathan Haines having been around long enough to know he was on the edge of something huge.
Towards the end of the '80's I manageded to work /live in Sydney / Melbourne / Adelaide and Brisbane and then I knew that Box / celeb was streets ahead on most counts.
I did enjoy Australian music culture as well but there wasn't much finesse to it at that time.
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Jason
The Billy Idol story was, I think, a few years earlier, at Zanzibar, I'm really not sure but don't think it was us.
Funny, I had a request for a copy of The New Groove yesterday. I don't have a copy myself but it basically came about because I was given the catalogues of Talking Loud and London and told I could put together a comp. I'd talked to Gilles Peterson about it in 1994 and it went from there. We were, because of his say so, given access to various mixes that were supposed to be unavailable or compilations. I did a second volume, a double, which was about 50% local acts which did pretty well. I don't have one of those either....
I guess the band with Nathan was The Enforcers and the DJ would've been Manuel Bundy, as I don't think Freebass ever used one. I might be wrong though.
Incidentally, I've posted a track from that lost Freebass album here
I did enjoy Australian music culture as well but there wasn't much finesse to it at that time.
I went to Melbourne in early 88 to see James Brown. The support band were the excruciating Rockmelons, who were billed as Australia's hottest 'funk' band.
I mentally put them next to our "hottest 'funk' band", Ardijah...nuff said I think.
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The Billy Idol story was, I think, a few years earlier, at Zanzibar, I'm really not sure but don't think it was us.
No, it was in 1985 I think, and the club was whatever club was occupying the floors under Toto at the time.
I wasn't there, but I saw him earlier in the evening -- he was in full regalia, with fashion ripped jeans, fingerless leather gloves and chains. Legend has it that one of his own songs was playing inside while he was being refused entry by a bouncer who didn't know who he was.
Mind you, Billy and his guitarist Steve Stevens were utterly off their chops for the entire duration of their promotional visit. Just wildly.
There were stories ... including the tale of a friend of a friend who was roused at 6am and opened the front door to find Billy Idol standing there. Apparently he'd heard there might be drugs to be had. That would be a very weird experience.
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I wasn't there, but I saw him earlier in the evening -- he was in full regalia, with fashion ripped jeans, fingerless leather gloves and chains.
Thirteen year old me is SO jealous right now.
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No, it was in 1985 I think, and the club was whatever club was occupying the floors under Toto at the time.
That would've been The Foundry them, a pretty heinous rawk club owned by Les 'Parnell' Harvey's family, and I think, run by Larry Morris (although I may be wrong about that last bit). You wouldn't want to be let in there.
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Didn't Scruff have that club?
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Didn't Scruff have that club?
That was later, after the Brat closed. The Brat was in the same place as The Foundry in 1986 was owned by Urlich and Philips, with myself spinning the records. I left to go to The Asylum, The Brat turned into Mantrap run by Daniel Barnes and a couple of others and Scruff took over the remnants for a while after that. In 87 it became The Playground which was me, Tom Sampson and Roger Perry (complete with the best DJ booth ever seen in NZ) and Le Bom, complete with Dean Martini Club, very dangerous, upstairs.
I'm not sure if it was the same trip to NZ (I was in London at the time) but courtesy of Sandra Bestall who was there here's a shot of Billy at Zanzibar. This was 1984.
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i've been trying to work out for the last couple of days what Le Bom was. been there, the Martinis worked. ha.
i had also thought the infamous Billy Idol promo tour was 84, now you've confirmed it. i heard he also managed to proposition K. Hay during an interview for RWP.
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.Didn't Scruff have that club?
I'm so confused.So scruff must have done '87 cos I thought he lived there and that's one year I can do. The evening always finished with the original dog and lemon guide, RIP
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That would've been The Foundry them, a pretty heinous rawk club owned by Les 'Parnell' Harvey's family, and I think, run by Larry Morris (although I may be wrong about that last bit). You wouldn't want to be let in there.
Went there there once in (I think) '78. A disco with a mirror ball, Sister Sledge, Chic, and a largely Pacific Island crowd with much blowing of whistles.
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owned by Les 'Parnell' Harvey's family,
Les Harvey xxxxx
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