Posts by Simon Grigg
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And US government calls bullshit on most piracy estimates.
Really? Now that's a bloody surprise.
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And...
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Haircut 100 are pushing it, S. Just sayin', ok?
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Heaven 17: prime exponents of flink, a Murray Cammick word for that peculiarly British form of sub-funk.
When he and I were sharing a flat between 1980 and '83, he used to get infuriated by the punk-funk I'd thrash at home. In particular this baby:
And yeah, H17 were the indeed the bomb (the album mix was way better but it will do): -
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).
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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