Posts by Simon Grigg
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Aww man, I love the Silver Scrolls. It's the best local musical event of the year - no media, no fuss, just music folks.
I get to hang around with 35 years of good friends and talk silly stuff, get a bit misty, a bit pissed and, well.....
Last night, though, one of the huge highlights came in the hour or so before the awards, which I spent with Mike Perjanik, now the Australasian chairman of APRA but more importantly to me a guy who created a huge slab of the stuff we know as New Zealand music from the 1960s. His resumé as producer, bandleader, arranger and musician from the first half of that decade just awes and I felt like a kid again in some hallowed presence.
As we drove into the carpark below the Civic he said "I started in a coffee bar up above us here called the Piccolo. I guess tonight is really for all the people who started in all the Piccolos, right?"
Indeed.
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A well groovy brass band:
Edit:
The one I was looking for, Voodoo Ray:
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Hard News: Friday Music: Dubious achievements, in reply to Andrew Dubber,
At the time, the biggest gig any NZ band had ever played at home.
That honour might actually go to Larry Morris. The Angels were booked to play with David Bowie at Western Springs and pulled out at the last moment. The posters were already printed so Larry quickly renamed his band The Angels and played the gig.
Might be worth noting that "minor hit" of theirs secured them the support slot for Dire Straits at Western Springs.
I'm not sure that it hurt, but mostly the support acts tended to be "chosen" because of contacts and relationships with the promoter. I scored These Wilding Ways, who I managed, a U2 support in 1989 because I knew the promoter (and we had an unrelated business relationship at the time) and the above "Angels" scored because Larry was managed by Hugh Lynn who was also the promoter.
And score it is too - a support gig gets you a pro-rata % of the APRA fee, so if you play 10 songs and the main act plays 20, you get 10/30ths of approx 2% of the gross ticket sales - yay.
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That SS story is hilarious. I was pulled aside years back by one member - not saying which - and asked who I regarded as the Satellite Spies and would I support him with a letter.
I said I really had no idea, and (didn't say this bit) really had never thought about or cared, plus I regarded Destiny in Motion as one of the eighties low points (it made the Nature's Worst compilation list that Wayne Bell and I put together a few years back for a giggle).
So, no but best of luck with whatever.
The odd thing - and something I'm going to have to deal with in the months and more to come - is how people blow up such minor achievements in their own minds.
I'm as guilty as anyone of that, but it seems particularly prevalent in music - a minor hit decades back gets somehow mentally conflated into a major cultural landmark over and over.
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Capture: Auckland Rock City, in reply to JacksonP,
I've got a list of some at the bottom of this page on my site.
Howick By The Sea was a horrible place. The best of the suburban gigs were often to be found in Church or RSA halls.
Once again (and no I'm not trying to get traffic) some terrific shots down page here courtesy of Mo Cammick's lens and unfailing eye.
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Capture: Auckland Rock City, in reply to Sacha,
It was a long time ago - back then we were sold the blue bottled version (75c at Alfies) or the green bottled ($1) - same beer but the story was the green filtered the light to produce a better flavour.
And that was the sophisticated/trendy end of the market....
Of course then Macs arrived and changed everything.
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Capture: Auckland Rock City, in reply to Simon Grigg,
next to Phil Warren
Another Phil Warren connection on this thread. The Hampton Court basement as above, was Phil's last office in the city (he'd been at Ace of Clubs / Six Month Club until it was knocked down for Mayoral Drive) and I spent a lot of time there in the late 80s, 90s surrounded by, and humbled by, vast amounts of NZ rock'n'roll history.
So, yes, plaques on these sorts of places are a great idea (although hopefully we'll shortly have digital versions of these to refer to).
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Capture: Auckland Rock City, in reply to JacksonP,
I remember that gig well - the first part of it of it. I was sitting up in the same box with Lange etc, next to Phil Warren, who owned the venue. Our beers ran out so Phil suggested I nip into Billy's dressing room just behind us and grab a couple from the rider.
He won't notice two gone, he said.
So I did and two turned into four into eight and so on until poor Billy was left with a single Steinlager can.
The second half of the show was a haze so the photographic evidence is welcome.
I think I was slightly more together by the time we all ended up at the after party, at Festival Record's Simon Baeyertz's place in Augustus Terrace, where - and the memory is still blurry - Billy played with the Topp Twins.
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From Radio NZ today, Nick Bollinger interviews Alan Jansson about the making of Proud, and the legacy:
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Hard News: The question of Afghanistan…, in reply to dc_red,
One thing that struck me was the bizarreness of how the fairly minimally equipped, outgunned and technologically primitive insurgents could hold the might of the US at bay not just for weeks or months, but years. E.g. The americans had helicopter gunships and the insurgents had rifles and radios.
Been happening since the end WW2: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq were all the result of US overestimation of the force of their technology. As soon as an enemy decides to change the rules the self-assumed US advantage has been neutered.