Posts by Graham Reid

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  • Random Play: Rock Follies,

    and this from Ross Middleton

    The Frayed Finishes, Six Months with a Creaky Throat

    Covers band has huge success with this hit that has the singer cracking various octaves while warbling "Way-o-way-o-way" befor sucking on a lozenge. Just sold to Strepsil for new ad campaign.

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 45 posts Report

  • Random Play: Rock Follies,

    and Mike Stevens reminds us that before Dave Dobbyn became a Republican his previous great single was . . . "Royal".

    Didn't Supergroove reform in the late 90s for that follow-up/remake of Scorpio Girls which really bombed and no one could figure out why?
    I quite liked Cancer Girls, although that video was worse than the Skeptics' Afco -- but I still don't reckon that was a real autopsy on that chick who died of lung cancer.

    keep 'em coming folks.

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 45 posts Report

  • Random Play: It’s Only Rock’n’Roll,

    This has been fun: yep it was Pod and it was very effective wee venue. And probably the Rhumba Bar where I got ther (glass) jug thrown at my head.
    Russell recalls Public Enemy in Camden: I recall before they came here the first time and for the Herald I tried to get an interview with Chuck D but he wouldn't talk to us. (I did one recently actually and it wasn't easy, he was in a business meeting and kept shuffling papers)
    Anyway we tried and tried, but eventually gave up but said to our readers how great it was going to be etc.
    On the night Chuck got up and said, "the meee-dia tried to stop this show, the po-lice tried to stop this show" etc and to my way of thinking neither of those assertions were true -- but the room rang with applause. just another version of 'Good evening Auckland' I think.
    I don't recall Zwines ever being especially violent in the sense of feeling like I was going to be beaten up (unlike a gig I attended where I worked the door for a band and they hadn't told me it was on the interesection of two gang territories near Tauranga)
    Zwines always struck me as being rough inasmuch as people were into slam dancing, but you didn't have to participate.
    The only time I have been beaten up -- steel cappped boot to my face which explains the nose -- was back in the late 60s near Albert Park on my way down to the old 1480 Village (which was where Zwines is/was).
    A coupla longhairs picked on a group of me and my school friends (all of whom had pretty long hair too) and said that we'd be mates if we had a fight. Weird logic.
    They were about 20 and we were 16.
    They won.
    I bled.

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 45 posts Report

  • Random Play: It’s Only Rock’n’Roll,

    okay i'm up for this.
    help me out there: what was that thing down in a shed on the wharf in Auckland in the mid/late 90s with Massive Attack? Or did i just imnagine that one?
    And the "venue" upstairs in an arcade just off Queen St on the right going down, in the block before Queens Arcade? I saw my oldest son's band play there a few times, the guy who booked the place was really nice but whose name I can't remenmber.
    The bar on Victoria St just up from Queen St on the right where punk and skinhead bands used play -- where i had a jug thrown at my head?
    The name of that place in the late 80s below that famous TVNZ hangout across from their building (downstairs, that's where I saw the Plague).
    Memory fails, but what were all those great local bands I saw at Armadillo on Upper Symonds St (where I interposed my body between big cops and young frail vegan rock-kids, to my cos)t.
    And what was the great small sweaty place down the road a bit where bands like Rainy Daze played. And opposite was that cafe with the big window where bands sometimes played??
    Venue historians might want to check out this:
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=3B606E06-39DF-11DA-8E1B-A5B353C55561

    Thin Lizzy at Logan Campbell: one of the best shows ever -- and what a fantastic fight in the crowd just before they went on! I watched a guy do a round-house punch to the jaw of a guy who was looking the other way. Decked him unconscious in the blink of an eye. Gee, kids in those days, huh?

    Going to see Black Slate and Herbs at the Town Hall and being one of maybe 20 white guys in the place. Standing in the foyer when a Black Power guy came in an announced "This is our night, brothers!"

    Most menacing gig I went to: Bob Dylan and Tom Petty.
    I sold t-shirts on the gate and Mongrel Mob guys kept cominn up and asking 'how much' and when i told them they said 'fug you' and watched me as i pocketed tens of dollars from paying customers. At one point I remember standing between three Mob members with about $1000 in my wee pinny and knowing I had to say 'excuse me' and walk past them through an outfield and then a crowded stadium to deliver my swag to the bankers.
    I was sober and they weren't. They were self-assured and I was scared shitwitless.
    Memories are made of this.
    Yours are welcome, keep 'em coming.

    Keep 'em coming.

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 45 posts Report

  • Random Play: It’s Only Rock’n’Roll,

    some further comments from me to fuel this one
    my hearing is fine thank you, just a little muffled in the left ear but i blame using an ear-piece microphone to tranbscribe tapes of Famous People.
    Re: Dogs Bollix -- i have been told the capacity there (according to View Auckland) is 250, on the night they had 280. this is what i am told but cannot verify.
    Re: late gigs? God I recall the late 80s and early 90s with horror, that is when Flying Nun bands had left home so could stay out late and mum wouldn't know. 11pm - midnight was customary. As anyone who has been in London, New York, Paris knows most bands have to play before "the last tube home".
    And what was with the tuning up on stage? Then going off to find the drummer. It's rock'n'roll folks: wham-bang! Go! Noise!
    Re costs: $71 for Tenacious D? Joking, surely?? To see what I described in a review as Anti-Christ Superstyar meets Rocky Horror. It was okay fun, but $71 worth?.
    Re Venues: anyone see Carole King struggle to present her Living Room Tour show (by design an intimate thing) in that cavern that is the Waitakere basketball stadium? Just wrong.
    And finally -- nice to hear Gate get a mention after all these years. Why weren't Wrecks Small Speakers huge??
    g

    auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 45 posts Report

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