Posts by Simon Grigg
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
New Zealand is still a small enough country where you can easily re write history by simply being the one or 2 people to actually 'document' it in your own image. Its not like the competition is tough or anything.
Agreed, mostly, Rob. To my mind the history of the those punk and post punk days remains to be written. I've not read Wade Churton's book but those who have, and who were, in Auckland anyway, a part of the era, don't regard it highly.
Andrew's work is different. I think he's made an amazing attempt to document the times and is very good with the detail (places, times etc) but, despite making a real attempt to fill in the bits in between, misses the shading in between those details a little..partially because he is too reliant on "the one or 2 people" sometimes and their POV can be, as we all can be, personally skewered. For example there are lengthy pieces in his fanzine which rely heavily on information provided by people who, amusingly, many of us know, would have little chance of remembering much, day or night, from the era.
the post punk genre is particularly weirdly served with a couple of prolific independent scribes busily re writing history in the way they want to see it, gleefully omitting detail they don't favor and focusing on the minute and unimportant making
I do think Andrew does his work a disservice by succumbing to these tendencies and thus the shading I mentioned above is askew or less than definitive. But as said, his detail is amazing at times.
Incidently, though, Andrew recently re-ran an old piece from Metro from the early 1990s which I'd forgotten. It captured the club scene and the era extraordinarily well and bought on a tear of nostalgia for me.
-
and increasingly ambivalent about my book...
No, don't be. John may have his flaws as he is the first to admit but I still like the man a lot (and when I was a club co-owner the sight of he and Bruno Lawrence staggering through our doors always bought a smile) but at least he did it.
It's a wonderful book in so many ways and, despite a few rather good regional histories (and a great hip hop one from Gareth Shute), no-one has come within a mile of it as a wide ranging, funny, smart and essential history of NZ popular music. The more recent rather lightweight attempts don't even sit in it's shadow IMO...although I'm hugely anticipating Chris Bourke's forthcoming pre-rock history.
But mostly SIP deserves it's reputation even if there are some grey edges.
Apparently the pictures got stolen from a car, but I was only told that at a funeral a couple of years back when I pressured John for the 20th time..so who knows but somehow they arrived in a new edition of the book??
'cause it occupies/d a central place in my kiwi-cultural store;
you do those things when you're not there..I have a few little items around to remind me, including a few bits of vinyl that I have no way of playing right now.
-
Ahhh, yes, well I'd be thoroughly pissed off about that, it'd be like losing favourite photos of family.
Coupled with the fact that some have a vague historic value now, and they were then re-used in the 2006 reissue without a word of request from anyone....yes I'm pissed off still.
-
You're really going to have to elaborate now Simon...
None of the photos supplied to John were ever returned. For me it was things like the first Suburban Reptiles photoshoot, early Meeemees live shots etc etc..a huge number.
-
by which I meant photographically
Those two words: Dix and photographs are best not put in the same sentence, for a few of us. Even after all these years, it's a very sore point.
-
Christ! Does that mean we should look out for the slightly ironic Simon Grigg revival?
After a good night's sleep I feel fully revived already today.
Like many who feature in Mr Dix's book, as fine as it might be, I'd love to see a tweaking in the accuracy of much of what is in. He's good on the bigger picture but weak on details (as I recall my interviews were done in the public bar at the Gluepot).
-
Is this a good place to say how freaking amazing it was to go to a Paul Weller (Sydney) gig last night... I'd've kissed him
Lucky bastard! His new album is actually quite good (and it's a pleasure for an old Jam / TSC fiend to say that as he's got boringly rockist in recent years).
he bought me a drink once, years back...he said he liked the music I was playing. The irony was I wasn't Djing, it was my mate, I was just in the booth hanging out. I took the drink though..you do when Paul Weller buys it for you (he also bought the DJ one).
-
oh yeah, iz speshiul. and a divine video too. utterly mesmerising.
After having scorned Fleet Foxes rather brutally in another thread, I'm gonna do a humiliating 180 and say that I agree.
I was turned by hearing this on this podcast, where, enticingly, a beat is mixed underneath a minute or so in..it works.
And talking of Brian Wilson....I think his new album (in his ongoing succession of one shockingly awful album followed by something quite wonderful...genius rarely equals reliability) is rather fine.
-
yeah... i'm inclined to think we still listen to experts. the diff is that now we get to choose them.
I can't help feeling though that I get more illumination from every thread here than I did from a season of The Ralston Group.
Clifton should read Flat Earth News to get a handle on what newspapers in the UK are like - 80 % of their material is not generated inhouse, owners of news media are completely compromised in their collusions with politicians and journalists are confined to their desks doing churnalism at best.
In 95 I wrote a press release for OMC's How Bizarre. I was pretty happy with it, even if I did use a little flowering to, shall we say, emphasis, certain things which read better than were factually 100%. It was picked up and used by PolyGram worldwide.
Later, when the clippings came in I was a little taken aback by how often it had been printed verbatim, and how many bylines I apparently had written it under.
-
Golly yes!
but I was too star struck to ask him about his mum