Posts by Peter Darlington
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Nothing brings back feelings of what a remote outpost NZ was in the 1970s like David Bowie. His album covers for Ziggy, Alladin Sane, Pin Ups and Diamond Dogs between 1972-74 show him to be a completely alien presence, almost unfathomable to the reality of growing up over here. That mystery is what made him so attractive.
I don't think you can underestimate the internationalism he brought to popular music for us white bread suburban audiences as well. It's easy to forget post-hip hop, dance music, remix culture and the Internet that once upon a time we had no access to or knowledge of the sounds of Africa, the middle East, Eastern Europe etc... that he embraced and challenged us with, particularly over the 10 year period from Young Americans through to Let's Dance.
-
I met Lemmy, well my arse did (ahem), right at the end of the Christchurch Town Hall gig where several of us (male & female) had been stage diving into the crowd all night. It was a fairly brutal atmosphere filled with bikers, punks, skins, students & assorted reprobates as well as the odd frightened old person up in the box seats. All had gone well until my last dig where standing up to dive coincided with the Kilminster doing his patented bass machine gun stage charge. This grubby little skinned-up herbert popped up in front of him & dived out into the crowd with perfect timing to catch a Lemmy snake skin boot up my arse.
He sent me into orbit, over the front rows and ploughing face first into the Town Hall floor several rows back, sadly missing the catchers and into the folks who move away when human bodies pass by at catching height. I lay there peacefully through the 10+ minutes of the Overkill encore, not sure if I would ever move again, before a couple of mates picked me up & dragged me out of the venue.
Artistically they were already done by then (the first & proper Philthy Phil era had just finished and Fast Eddie was gone), I never felt the need to buy another album, but I'm so pleased to have seen them (ahem), just that once.
Also, my mate Milty got stabbed in the bum at the very aggressive Palmerston North gig & Lemmy visited him to offer commiserations, if not a kiss, on the offended area. Happy days!
-
Hard News: Cheers, in reply to Russell Brown,
Another thing with Amplifier, for every act, there was a bio. Even if it was just a couple of sentences, it was usually enough to establish where the act was from, what kind of music they played, and probably also a list of band members.
Quite a few times I've found the info I need from those bios. Another excellent point, Robyn!
Me too, have used these many times over the years for reviews, shows etc... Really sad about this. Purchased from them just a few weeks ago, it was always my go-to site for NZ music.
-
Hard News: Victoria Crone and what…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Even if she was a technical expert at Xero, there’s a world of difference between developing a greenfield, SAAS, SME accounting system and integrating existing corporate legacy systems with a massive amount of baggage – which can’t just be hand-waved away because as we saw with Novapay, all the boring shit has to work or people don’t get paid (etc).
Yep...
-
Daesh has been making a late run.
-
In many ways, this game tonight should not have gone ahead. Big respect to the French players though, for digging in and insisting it happened. What a week they will have had.
-
Hard News: Ten Thousand Maniacs, in reply to Jason Kemp,
To really combat terror, end support for Saudi Arabia - Owen Jones
Cutting the supply lines doesn’t look like a real option but it should be.
But this it, isn't it. The US and the West are allied with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states (maj Sunni), Russia is allied with Assad and Iran (maj Shia). It's still the grand adventure and the cold war continuing to play itself out...
-
Hard News: Ten Thousand Maniacs, in reply to chris,
What is incrontrovertible is that from when the first protests began on February 5th there was a 5 week period leading up to March 18th where protesters weren’t being shot at. What should arouse suspicion in the inquiring mind is that unlike comparable events in other countries where protesters are shot at, these ‘protesters’ were not swayed by the guns and kept coming back for more day after day for months.
Pilger also states that the fix was in.
"Last year, the former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas revealed that "two years before the Arab spring", he was told in London that a war on Syria was planned. "I am going to tell you something," he said in an interview with the French TV channel LPC, "I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business. I met top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria... Britain was organising an invasion of rebels into Syria. They even asked me, although I was no longer Minister for Foreign Affairs, if I would like to participate... This operation goes way back. It was prepared, preconceived and planned."
-
It's certainly shaken us, partly because the location of most of the attacks, up above Place de la Republique is only 3 blocks from the apartment we stayed in on Rue du Temple back in 2008. Was a beautiful spot and that neighbourhood remains close to our hearts. So much so that we're going back there next July, flying Air France and will be in that neighbourhood again, on Bastille Day 2016. We were all very excited about it, but this weekend has made shit seem a lot more real all of a sudden. I have to say it has made me a bit nervous, but at the same time I can't imagine a better thing to do than going to Paris, and for people to keep on going there and celebrating what a great city it is.
One thing I've thought of, the Marais, right next door to the attacks has historically been both the Jewish and gay quarter of Paris. Did this play a part when locations were selected? I hope not, either way it's all really bloody sad.
-
Hard News: The good guys, in reply to George Darroch,
The choice of venue sounds completely incongruous and slightly weird – perhaps there just wasn’t much in the way of ‘discreet’ venue hire.
It's one of THE celebrity venues of choice in London, apparently. Does seem a bit weird, but there you go.
