Posts by Simon Grigg
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Tom,
I can't help feeling that NZoA is caught between a rock and a hard place here. I agree with you, electronic music gets a raw deal (Greg Churchill has had 4 UK Top Twenty Mixmag hits, a single in the UK pop chart and probably plays to more kids weekly than any NZ band, and a large proportion of that is original) but NZoA, as it sees it's brief is to get get NZ music on the airwaves..end of story, and outside of student radio and George etc, radio ain't gonna play Greg or Steve (we used to promote tours together in the early 90s...isn't it funny where people end up).And I can almost sympathise with Gray Bartlett, although there is a huge gulf between country towns turning up to see an MOR tour, and a large dedicated country music fanbase. When I was touring bands through small town NZ, they simply turn up en-mass because you are there, not because they are driven by an urge to see any particular style of music. Small towns appreciate the fact you came. And I think he has trouble seeing the wood for the proverbial when it comes to Hayley etc.
But the issue, as Duncan, Russell and, indeed Gray said on the Media 7 piece is simply with the brief. Pursuant to the brief there is, Brendan has done an amazing job (and it's hard to begin to imagine how many battles he has had to fight along the way to achieve this..he's had to be a politician, plugger, diplomat and adapt himself to ever changing styles over decades and then deal with being called everything under the sun from every angle whilst he's done so. And he's pulled it off, more less...pursuant to the brief. Remember...its called "NEW ZEALAND ON AIR" and that is what he has tried to achieve with a fair degree of success. We can argue semantics as to what that actually means but in 1990 NZ airplay was around 1%, now, in real terms (and it might not be the music you or I like, but that's neither here nor there) is probably around 15%. And this has played a big part in giving the industry a currency that it never achieved before.
It's the brief that really needs to be revisited, as per Duncan and Russell and I would argue that such a review is long overdue. That's the issue for me.
-
Eco-City developments need to be brown-field, reshaping existing urban spaces not destroying vital natural habitat.
At the rate at which a city like Shanghai is growing that habitat you talk of would have been consumed within a year or two anyway. Isn't it better that it, and the other two similar projects further inland are done this way.
The urban growth in these places is mind boggling..take Shenzhen, thirty years back it didn't exist. Now 9 million call it home.
-
Nick - I have a frequent flier card with United - it's free and I can clock up mileage on all my AirNZ travel
Yep, I have a Krisflyer SIA card which does the same. None of those silly Air NZ Dollars or whatever they are.
Krisflyer are fantastic, their website is extraordinarily user friendly, and, unlike anyone else I've come across, if you ring their 24 hour line in Singapore and leave a message, they'll call you back at their cost wherever you are in the world, and try to see how they can best accommodate one's demanding needs. I've even had a few gratis bonus miles added to enable me to do things that I would otherwise have been unable to do with my total, offered without prompting.
It's an odd feeling to discover an airline that actually wants to help.
-
I suggest the Chinese will not see sense or suddenly engage in a group hug
And then there is this.
Our bus trip from Hong Kong to Guangzhou last month had to go through a compulsory emissions check station on the way through. These seem to be dotted around the cities I saw too and cars are randomly checked.
I've got a buddy who manufactures signs, gifts and the like for companies by recycling their products and earlier signage. He's moving his production to an industrial park outside Shanghai. The cost is pretty much the same but the environmental manufacturing standards he needss he can't find in Australia.
It's not all gloom.
-
The thing i would love to see on long haul flights would be AC power..... at all seats.
Singapore's A380s provide exactly that
-
I used to think the AirNZ inflight system was a little buggy, and a little laggy, until I few 14 flights in 6 weeks from NZ to the UK via Asia, and experienced what other airlines call inflight entertainment.
Air NZ should be good, they came into the game a decade after everyone else. You are comparing their new generation in-flight system with legacy systems. Myself, I still prefer Singapore's over anybody elses.
The secret is always to carry ones own headphones.
-
Cheers, Lionel! You were a total badass before all that 'Dancing on the Ceiling' palaver!
What what I understand Lionel always wanted that sort of palaver, it was the others in the band who wanted the fonk to continue. They made a couple of killer funk records in the mid eighties after Lionel ran off to make that excruciating video with the blind person.
-
I got the opposite impression from the show. I think they immediately followed you with a story about a guy who OD'd in a club and everyone just walked over the body assumed he was just passed out, and it wasn't until they closed that they discovered he was dead.
Oh, so that was the punk / Zwines bit. The story is true, but it pre-dates club culture as in dance-club. We were talking about the flood of cheap, Mr Asia sourced, heroin that flooded NZ in the 70s and the mayhem it caused.
Whilst I was never tempted by anything like that, I think most of us who were around the live scene in those days could tell a few stories.
-
Simon appeared outside a brick wall as a 'club owner' from the period.
High Times was made by my old flatmate (78-80) David Herkt and I was persuaded to appear in such guise because I guess no-one else wanted to and I tend to get dragged in for these sorts of things.
But, if its the interview I think it was (I was in that show twice AFAIR, once about punk / Zwines) I think I was trying to make the point that contrary to the reputation it had, drugs didn't play a massive part in early NZ club land.
Like Rocking The Nation, I've never seen the show.
-
I've seen them in Asia but neither the iPod or anything else comes close to the simple Nokia / Motorola as the MP3 player of choice up here.