Posts by Eddie Clark
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A lot of the live music I've seen in the past few years hasn't been at "gigs" per se, but people playing in cafes or small bars where the patrons are expectedto talk through the music.
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And to those who object to people talking or ordering drinks at the bar: it's a bar. I'm here for a drink and a chat. Deal with it.
Agree, in those circumstances. Incidental/background/pub covers band is a different context to a gig. So I don't think my grumps really have any application in that context, and I don't think the 2nd part of what I quoted above has any application to a proper gig.
Indigo, for example, is a venue first and a bar second (who goes to indigio/SFBH to drink?). And Fleet Foxes, for example, was 55 bucks. In those circumstances, I think you have a reasonable expectation of people paying attention to the music and mostly shutting the hell up. [Wow, that sounded grumpy]
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Although I have a certain sympathy for Tom's 'op shop pod people' thing, too. The twee are so earnest. Is there no happy medium?A little bit of bopping, generally rapt attention, occasional 'yay!' or between-song chat to your friends? It's what I aim for.
Danielle, you are me and I am you (that sounds familiar). The funniest twee incident I can recall is going to Grayson Gilmour at Happy on a freezing Wellington day (howling southerly, hail etc) to find a crowd of twee hipster girls, in op shop sun dresses, barefoot! They appeared to have come to the gig like that. Heh.
As for Tom's general point - in Wellington at least the problem is one of venues. The quiet-type acts like Joanna Newsom, Bonnie Prince Billy, the Mountain Goats etc that might do well at a seated venue just don't have the fan base to support a gig at any of Wellington's seated venues. So they all end up at Indigo or Bodega. While indigo generally has good sound, its not best set up for intimate gigs like that. Gillian Welch played at the Paramount once - I didn't go, but I wonder how that'd work.
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Or, wait, the evil mastermind does the torturing. Bah, my fiendish plan doesn't work, Mr Bond. And I've wasted all this time explaining it to you.
Heh. Writing that makes me think of this
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Yes. And as torture he should be forced to dance in public. Possibly to Boyzone.
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Well, yes. I acknowledge that. I'm generally a gig curmudgeon, and I missed out on a ticket, so I'm bitter and twisted. Plus it was an excellent excuse to rant about gig talkers, who really DO piss me off. Texting doesn't piss me off, per se, I just don't understand while one would be texting in the middle of a song.
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Its not so much that its an annoyance, but its a symptom of people who go to gigs to be seen rather than to listen to the fucking music. The most annoying expression of this is talking. Not just saying that a song is cool, or geeking out at the band playing your favourite, but talking all the way through the gig. Indigo (sorry, SFBH) is awful for this. At a couple of quite quiet shows I went to - Bonnie Prince Billy and Joanna Newsom - half the crowd stood by the bar and talked loudly the whole time. There's no way they could have actually heard the music.
Now texting isn't as bad at all, but its a symptom of the same thing. Hipsters who are too cool for school, have heard of the band but are not actually interested in the music, and go along to show everyone just how cool they are.
If they're not that into the gig, they shouldn't go. Otherwise people that actually, you know, like music, miss out. The Wellington show sold out weeks in advance, and I didn't get a ticket. I'll happily take an uninterested texter's one off their hands.
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Seriously, when we've done away with capitalism, who runs global telecommunications?
Russell, haven't you read your Neal Stephenson? We set up a data haven on some remote island, possibly Sealand, and then everything becomes a magical digital utopia. With a hilariously lame recreation of the Black Sun in second life. Duh, its that simple...
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Steve:
My god, yes. I just spent a year living in Toronto, and going into the beer store at queen and bathurst, or the lcbo at Bloor and Ossington is a nasty experience if you go in at the wrong time. They also close horribly early, are miles apart, and make picking a bottle of wine up on your way to dinner or a party a very inconvenient process.
As for a New Zealand solution, I need to do some more reading (will do later today), but I suspect that a proper application of current zoning and liquor licencing requirements could mitigate a lot of the trouble we see at the moment. Resorce consent and liquor licences are not supposed to be rubber stamped, and shouldn't be treated as such.
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Mark:
To echo Tom... Compare and contrast the following: A paper with pretensions of journalistic quality and neutrality, and a collection of personal blogs. False equivalence much?
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I don't doubt your literacy Eddie, I suspect you just wanted to have a bit of an internet joust.
No I just think you're wrong, Mark :P.
My pointless internet fight is currently tormenting the Canadian online store that refuses to believe that my NZ credit card is real. Immensely entertaining. (I still haven't got the product I want, but the amazingly inane customer service responses are hilarious)