Posts by Simon Grigg
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Hip Hop Voices 1: Meet the Kingpin, in reply to Russell Brown,
And that all he knew about them was that they were "superstars".
And the only NZ hip-hop act to have a number one single a decade after the first. Their second knocked Scribe off the top. They liked the irony in that: the old skool strikes back...
-
To be fair too, there was loads of hip-hop happening in both South and West Auckland before Proud, and most of it had strong Polynesian roots - like the extended Three The Hard Way posse, based Henderson/Te Atatu, who were NZ hip-hop's first superstars (with a Top 20 hit in Australia no less).
The first Ak Hip Hop comp was Ak89 - In Love with these Rhymes, released on cassette by Nick D'Angelo. I'd love a copy but even he seems not to have it.
Some of it was ok too in places, although derivative, but some was really funny - albeit not always intentionally ( ^^ Total Effect circa 1989).
-
Great piece Russell, I remember it well and we actually quoted a few pieces from it in the first OMC bio we sent around the world in 1996.
The Proud album was actually released on a label called Second Nature which was a joint venture between Volition and Alan Jansson, although - even though Enterprise Otara committed some funds - it was mostly funded by Alan, to the tune of almost a year's studio evenings. It was released in NZ via EMI and in Oz by Sony.
Phil later rang Alan (I was there) to apologise for the "sanitised" words. They hurt at the time given the amount of work and sweat that been expended. And the input Phil had had in the way parts of Proud sounded - which was not insubstantial.
And Leo - thank you :)
-
Hard News: Friday Music: When there were…, in reply to Nora Leggs,
I've found my negatives of pictures from Nambassa 1981. Will have to remove the paper that is stuck to them before I can scan them..
I was going through stuff at my parents' place the other week and found a box with about 100 slides of Nambassa. Since I wasn't there I have no idea where they came from - or who took them.
This is The Plague (an early version of what later became Blam Blam Blam) during their notorious naked performance.
-
Hard News: Drunk Town, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Wow Tom, that's a hellava long draw.
My first thought was that black-shirted thugs on every corner or not (and I admit I've missed these in China) doesn't alcohol make you do unwise things regardless of the downstream? Like driving your car. It's taken decades to ram home that message in New Zealand and it's still subverted by a glass too many.
Secondly, I've lived in South East Asia and travelled the region extensively over the past 7 1/2 years and Chris & Chris & Linger's words travel.
I lived 5 years in Bali, where the Balinese drink heavily - mostly arak and beer - but never in those years did I witness Balinese instigated booze fuelled random violence of the sort you see in Auckland every weekend night. Mostly the damage they do is getting into a car or onto a bike and totalling themselves as a result (there are no drink-driving laws enforced).
In Muslim Java they drink - quietly - and mostly the local spirits which make the country the second biggest producer of whiskey/whisky in the world. You've not lived until you've tried bootleg Jack - or maybe you won't live long after you have.
They don't as a habit hit each other as a result. You just don't see it at all.
Singapore, Cambodia, Malaysia: same.
Here in Thailand, man do they drink. The local spirits are cheap, vicious, rocket fuel (750 l of Mekong is about $5, Absolut is a about $25 a litre in the 7/11) and vast cheap family beer gardens are a traditional part of the culture.
They get well pissed - so much so that you legally can't buy booze from 2 to 5pm, and they have to ban booze sales on election days to ensure people don't forget to vote - but they don't hit each other. Once again, the damage is on the highways.
The people that do hit each other seem to be inevitably Australasians - not even the scourge of Europe, the British, do it as we do.
In Bali, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam we are notorious for it. We get drunk, we get in fights. We get arrested. Over and over and over - the media is full of it and you have to hang your head sometimes. As a result, the respect level is low and we're not seen as socially civilised people.
So why do we do that? 'Cos we're free?
-
Hard News: Friday Music: The Jazz, in reply to Danielle,
I like to take it back even further.
And this take just turns me to jelly...
-
Hard News: Friday Music: More Finding, in reply to DexterX,
The clash and talking heads embracing the disco age is just heresy and just plain wrong to say so IMHO.
The bassline from Radio Clash was pure disco with a direct line back to the great Philly bassists like Ronnie Baker.
Train In Vain was about as Disco as a 7" could get, and then we have Sandinista, almost a disco album in its spawl, full of tracks like The Magnificent Seven and The Call Up both in a classic indie disco stylee.
Once In A Lifetime was a massive New York club record in the discos, as were the Tom Tom Club releases - all those were made for and targeted at a disco crowd. And they worked because the people that made them listened to, understood and liked the music.
funk, latin, reggae and manifestly more rhythmically complex and much wider in scope sonically than just the straight four on the floor, quavering high hat with prominent (octive) bass lines.
You've just successfully defined disco. Thank you. How does The O'Jays For The Love Of Money fit your description? And yet that's a foundation disco recording.
The stuff coming out on labels like Prelude, West End, Philadelphia International, TK, Atlantic and Salsoul blended all those genres - that's what it was. It was funk filtered through Latin and gay New York/Philly to which dub reggae production techniques were added.
You seem to have narrowly defined 'disco' by what Top 40 radio played. That wasn't ever it.
-
well that worked then didn't it :)
-
And:
-
Hard News: Friday Music: More Finding, in reply to Russell Brown,
No one in a punk band could play that lead break.
No one in a British punk band could.....
