Posts by Mike O'Connell
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Looking forward to seeing Sharon van Etten at a sold-out Wunderbar tonight.
Putting a different spin on things, it kinda makes you weep when the Eagles are still zimmer-framing their stuff, to 75,000 this weekend in Akl. What does the Dude think?
Hard to believe Joe Walsh was for a brief time part of Herbs, apparently an eventful enough occasion to bring about his now long-term sobriety.
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Not wanting to sound like a cliche but Aldous (Hannah) Harding does a marvellous version of the Roy Orbison standard. I've seen her sing it half dozen times and it never fails to stir the emotions. Couldn't find a video but there's an audio at the Wireless Live session: Aldous Harding. Last song, starts at 20:45 in. Whether just voice or with Simon Gregory on guitar, it's mesmerising.
This review from a recent session at the Tuning Fork
Aldous finishes with an unaccompanied version of Roy Orbison’s Crying . No guitar now. Standing. Exposed. And she gives us her all. A huge vocal range from the very depth of her ‘cry-y-y-ying” , slow, breathy, Eartha-Kitt-meets-Edith-Piaf… how one so young can capture the tragedy, the pathos , the loss , as well as the soaring notes and the depths of that song, is an enigma
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Hard News: Friday Music: Christchurch,…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
It's a great little venue that one. Two of those luminaries in the audience on Thursday were recorded at the Auricle in Dec 2013 Roy Montgomery, Bruce Russell and Guests. It was (video) recorded but hasn't had I don't think a public release yet.
Bruce's 'set' downstairs was pretty wild, Roy's 'set' upstairs was stated subdued, a slow-burner which got more hypnotic as it went on - about 25 min if I recall (Sister Ray-ish at the end).
A heavily bearded Jody Lloyd visually is reminiscent these days of a latter day James K Baxter!
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Hard News: Friday Music: Christchurch,…, in reply to Russell Brown,
strictly speaking, they’re a Timaru band
True. Tom Lax at Stillbreeze is a bit of a fan of SYTA.
Jackson's FN 42 card array made me think of local institution Galaxy Records (and their cool comic strip - should be attached.)
BTW the all-black card #30 is still relevant to the local scene - there's a fair amount of Dark Matter still about in this fair city!
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Hard News: Friday Music: Christchurch,…, in reply to JacksonP,
Impressive! I have found mine too though they remain in the cassette case. My daughter couldn't work out how to open it!
What's come out on this thread is a bit like trying to find the last prime number; discoveries keep being made and stories come out.It's been thoroughly enjoyable.
Some of this may not be new news but anyway, I’ve found this The Dark Stuff - The Voyage of Discovery of Tom Lax - from Ohio to Christchurch, NZ a great Richard Langston interview with Tom Lax from Siltbreeze Records in Ohio. How he was ‘introduced’ to kiwi music in 1985, being told by a sales rep
‘I’ve got this stuff from New Zealand that nobody else wants, do you wanna give that a shot?’ nd I said ‘what is it?’ and he said ‘I have no idea ‘. He started listing off these names like the Tall Dwarfs, The Puddle, Victor Dimisich. I didn’t know what it was either, none of that stuff had broken into the American lexicon of underground music.
...Ohio, Cleveland, Pere Ubu…
RL: Those Scorched Earth Policy records are dark and quite something…it was a very rich period of music making…
TL: I mean remember going to see Pere Ubu in ‘78 or ‘79 and it was the first time I’d gone to see a band that was under the aegis of punk but they were dressed in flannels, jeans, work boots, beards maybe.SEP - one of my favourties. Often short and snappy songs like Too Far Gone
And this site by local (photographer) Chris Andrews thebigcity, It's active on and off - and includes this: The Pin Group: Article on Ambivalance and The Pin Group: Complete Interview with Roy Montgomery.
Here's Roy, on a typical Pin Group performance:
Typical audience reception to the Pin Group was bemusement as far as I could tell. I remember Bill Direen doing headstands on the dancefloor of the Gladstone to one of our songs but I think he was making some sort of Dada anti-art statement.
This short piece on the PG has been in circulation for a while now but worth watching again - Ronnie van Hout’s mini-film The Pin Group.
No-one’s mentioned Kevin Smith and Say Yes to Apes. I remember a crazy free-form performance in the University Ballroom ca. 1984. No live footage but there's this:
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Hard News: Friday Music: Christchurch,…, in reply to Stupid,
Ah, the Axemen
They played at the protests for homosexual law reform in 1983, with member Little Stevie McCabe being severely beaten up in theChristchurch Cathedral Square toilets.
Presumably those dingy underground ones. I was vaguely aware of this. Not that much later in history we got the Homosexual Law Reform Act 1986. More on the Axemen at Spacecase records, the Sac Tap Nut Jam LP
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This is a great initiative Richard! I imagine in the detail for the family weekend there are programmes / events catering for primary and secondary kids - our future budding scientists?
Speaking generally, I'd love to see the young'uns of today get a grounding in concepts like the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (entropy - 'turning good stuff into rubbish') and the exponential function to help understand why the world's economy can't keep expanding without limits.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Christchurch,…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Audioculture has a great interview with Eugene and Eric from Desperate Measures
Those days could be quite intimidating at times, the 'boots' and 'skins' on the streets and at the gigs. No more so than when No Tag came to the Star and Garter in 1983. There was a real dichotomy at that place; the boots and skins in the lounge bar while in the equally intimidating public bar through a thin partition, the Mongrel Mob would 'take over' (there was also the curious oval pool table!)
The Johnnies is another band of the time that springs to mind. The 'J' in the circle, Janarchists... never saw them play but went to primary school with their guitarist Vince Haughey. Their singer Rik Tindall went on to become a short-term regional councillor (one of the Creech Report '14'), and currently on the the Spreydon/Heathcote community board.
(Christchurch) Musicians who became politicians, another thread perhaps? Worth noting too that Paul Lonsdale of the Solatudes is now a Christchurch City Councillor.
Russell, I happened upon this post of yours from 2011 Heads Up For Music and mention of the pre-quake Wunderbar gig, the 1981 Christchurch Reunion Night after which this compilation emerged. Solatudes' Home Again is on that.
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Hard News: To defame and deflect, in reply to Steve Barnes,
It may be something to do with his appalling pronunciation but now we seem to have a Minister for Terrorism and the people of New Zealand are fighting “The War on Tourists”
It's times like these one needs Minties...look, the tourists are fighting back:
Tourists take law into own hands by confiscating New Zealanders’ alcoholA Korean husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Keum, were shocked to find the tavern, a popular site for tourists, overrun with drunken locals, throwing objects at one another, and swearing about the rugby in front of their children.
Mr. Keum felt that the locals were creating a “dangerous situation” for themselves and other patrons, and forcibly took a total of 11 beers from 6 separate individuals.
What I will say is that the GCSB is not spying; just ‘inadvertently looking’!
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Hard News: Friday Music: Christchurch,…, in reply to Hebe,
Of course Shand's, Shades was that dreadful arcade nearby. As mentioned, Shand's sits there still, nothing much has changed since it was up for grabs in Aug 2013
There had been "incredible interest" in the building, he said [Anthony Gough], with at least five "really good prospective owners looking at it"
Interest has evaporated and not sure why but anyone doing anything in CCDU-controlled territory faces, shall I say, 'challenges'.
Meanwhile, (Don't) Pull Down the Shades
