Posts by Graham Reid
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Yes, I am aware that Real Groovy has not now got a store in Dunedin, and I am sure there are as many reasons as there are conspiracy theories about why/why not.
I guess what we tend to forget about when it comes to music is that a record shop is actually just another business. If it makes a buck it stays in business, if it doesn't then . . .
And also that Real Groovy, just like JB Hi-Fi, Uncle's and the Number 1 Shoe Warehouse was expansionist.
I'm a pragmatist when it comes to things like this: to survive they probably had to ditch a store and that was it. Also the deal they have cracked is because the managers of the stores in ChCh and Wellington bought the shops to keep them going.
I have no idea what happened in Dunedin. Maybe no one thought to, or wanted to, buy it? (If not, why not?)
If I am looking at it through rose-tinted glasses then so be it: but I am not so naive to think that RG is anything but a business.
This from Chris Hart's e-mail, the emphasis mine: "The Auckland store will join forces with the Wellington and Christchurch stores (purchased by local management) in order to bring the nation’s biggest retail chain, selling new, rare and second-hand music, back to its former glory."
Yep, money talks etc and while we might have emotional attachment to the corner record store (like Roy Colbert's etc) or love the smell of vinyl in the morning, the end of the ledger is where it is at.
And Solomon King on scratchy old vinyl at my house is still singing "there was music before, there'll be music again . . ."
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Speaking of Wikipedia entries on musicians: up until a fortnight ago the occupations listed for Australian alt.country Kasey Chambers were "singer-songwriter, musician, lesbian".
I put this to her during an interview to be published in the Herald in advance of her Kings Arms concert with her husband Shane Nicholson (August 5) and she laughed.
Then she said, "what do you think of that Shane?" and he fired back with dusty and droll immediacy, "I think you should quit that job".
Seems someone else thinks so too -- that particular "occupation" is now no longer listed. -
I'm not a motor racing guy at all but driving cautiously to work today (yep, cheaper to drive and get earlybird parking than take the uncertain public transport allegedly available) I ws chuffed for Dixon -- and a thought immediately occured.
If he's up there with Bruce McLaren, does he now get an intermediate school in Auckland named after him?
And a song by NRA??? -
I will be posting at some later date about the DVDs and CDs I picked up (and a couple of good books about korean design and culture etc) but meantime yamis if you want to flick me an e-mail via www.elsewhere.co.nz you and i can maybe chat about such things away from prying eyes -- and i have some useful links for you i hope.
k-punk rools!
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Many thanks for the Seoul tips, you can stop now as I am literally typing these last words before we go to the airport.
FYI, I am interviewing the great gayageum master Byunki Hwang (see/hear him at www.elsewhere.co.nz and also some people in the new fusion gugak movement. And trawling record shops etc etc.RE the museum, thanks for comments so far: the i$$ue i$ becoming more clear, ye$?
But they are also keen to reach out to the city (i guess bridging the old town/gown divide that the Uni still faithfully observes). Any suggestions on how they could reach out by way of exhibitions, programmes, marketing, profile etc
(Eg: does every exhibition have to be in the Museum for example, why not some part of it in the centre of the town or even St Lukes???)
Righto
band names and hip-hoppers noted.
Gone ........................(Yep, Ashlee and Tiger, seems top be what I did! You gotta problem with that pal?)
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Just to keep this one boiling . . .
Re "politics" in "art": seems to me every CD I get by an alt.country band/singer these days has some anti-Bush song. Should they come with a consumer warning?
I have been surprised when people tell me they are badgered by Falun Gong. Just say "No", it works.
Yes, FG does try to infiltrate itself into public events -- but they sur as hell aren't alone in that regard!Re Falun Gong background: Some of you may be interested in this story I wrote for the Listener two year ago (some of which that Sunday Star Times article relitigated more recently). Might be helpful (and yep I did mention the anti-gay position etc)
http://nzlistener.co.nz/issue/3442/features/5972/nothing_left_to_lose.html
I also wrote this for publicaddress.net last year about the show
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"its an odd boy who doesn't like sport"
it is a more odd one who plays two games every saturday for over 15 years before finally quitting. I felt the same about cricket too actually: played two games every saturday in summer for school and club (more than competent bowler -- bored witless by fielding in the hot sun or sitting waiting to bat [i was a 50+ or out for 3]) and I got out of that only a season or two short of my 15th year.
didn't day i didn't like sport, just that i didn't like playing it.
many thanks for the bonzo clip.
apropos of nothing here's why punk had to happen (stick around, after about the 4th minute it actually gets worse) . . .
the bad news is that after this screened on The Old Grey Whistle Test there was such a demand for the album that PolyGram (or whoever) had to stop production of every other album and turn the pressing plant over the churning out this album just to meet demand.
just sad. -
Ohhh, Moby Grape . . . love that debut (and Country Joe and the Fish's Electric Music For the Mind and Body which I also mentioned). Go to amazon and get the double disc collection, it is very cool -- but as I mentioned, their albums were re-rleased for about two weeks late last year before the "manager" lurched back on the scene.
Haven't heard the Cat Power version (she is posted at Elsewhere currently too) because I only got the single disc version of the CD.
Cannot understand how anyone can live with a record player -- even for just a wee while. It would be the last thing I would pack and first out of the box.
I go to Real Groovy about every 10 days and buy a swag from their $2 and $4 bins ($10 is getting pricey for me). Amazing what you can find: I am currently grooving to Richard Harris, a Quin Tikis album and swag of early 60s Hawaiian music albums in kitschy covers.
It is always cocktail hour at my place! -
hiya bob
as a high-wired but cultural illiterate (so what am i doing here?) i appreciate it.
i asked for smart-people help because it didn't link.
i did my best setting it up: initially i blamed the herald but of course, as we say. it's all about me, huh? . . .
Aah figgit, i'm at home listening to john cale vinyl from '82 so what do i know . . in the face of Music For A New Society, nothing I wrote was that important.
cheers
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Just a couple of quick comments from me, as the author humbled by your responses:
Andrew! You can get a novel out of siuch things? I could distill it to a haiku but not embellish it to a book. So that's where the real money is, huh?
Colin! Your Dad was . . . Jim? I think that is what his name was, a rangy, wiry and well-muscled man whom my Dad and I often used to meet by what we used to call the changing sheds. If that is him my Dad and he were great mates and I remember to this very day my Dad's admiration for him and how he used to row -- in whatever weather and in whatever seas -- out there and fish. (We fished somewhat closer to the shore!). Let me know if I'm on the right track.
And to the others who have written: my sincere thanks. Your appreciation is much appreciated.
By the way: today it was lovely at Okahu at lunchtime -- although rather too many mothers with their kids because dad was back at work. But what a joy that we can swim at a beach just minutes away from central Auckland.
We are lucky people -- if not the chosen race!