Posts by philipmatthews
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Me, my wife, my sister & her hubby (all of us in our 30s at the time) and my mum (somewhat older) went to see EMF at Vic University in the day, because my cousin from the Old Country was their roadie & got us tickets. My mum called me up to tell me "IBM are playing at the university tonight and we have tickets!". She lasted 6 songs or so, me & the missus the whole show, although all the songs sounded the same to me, except their one hit.
And they were too loud. But I didn't tell them so.
I remember seeing, at the same venue around the same time, a very, very loud Bailter Space. So loud that a big chunk of the audience couldn't stand being in the hall and listened from out in the stairwell. Don't think we could have told them they were too loud if we'd tried.
Saw that EMF show. Very ordinary but for their one good song ("Unbelievable"). Don't remember too much loudness.
About a decade ago, Mogwai at the Power Station were supposed to be ear-shreddingly loud but seemed strangely subdued. Maybe I missed the golden age of offensive volume: there are still people who say their hearing has never fully recovered from the Gordons.
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There was some good banter when Dimmer played AL's in Christchurch a few weeks back. Shayne introduced his cover of The Gordons' "Machine Song" like this:
"A song by a Christchurch band. No, might be from Ashburton actually. Bit of an Ashburton classic, this."
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Just saw that The Trowenna Sea is the number one NZ fiction bestseller -- not just for the week ending Nov 7 but also for the week ending Nov 14. The second week being the period when the Listener cover was everywhere and the story was widely discussed. There's no such thing as bad publicity, obviously, and now I can see Denis Welch's point that the Listener cover -- which was all about Witi apologising -- was a bit soft on him (the cover, not the story inside). The magazine let him frame it his way rather than making the expose the story. Now, little over a week later, the "plagiarism row", as at least one paper calls it, starts to appear like something traumatic that happened to Witi for which he has been justifiably rewarded with $50K, as in this quote from the Herald story:
He was grateful for the support he'd received from the foundation which would help him move past the controversy.
Amazing that the Arts Foundation "discussed" withdrawing the honour but opted not to.
Up thread, Giovanni talks about feeling sorry for him. I felt the reverse when I heard him on Morning Report today. He's not just overshadowing Knox, we've also heard nothing about Anne Noble who has produced three of the most extraordinary series of photos in our art history: the Whanganui River one, the Antarctica one, and the one about the nuns (can't be arsed googling their real names).
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No, that's more cult-y (cf Love bombing). Isn't the next step that we isolate him from his existing peer group?
I'm a bit of a Groucho Marxist about this: wouldn't join any group that would have people like me as a member.
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Chris Knox on Campbell live tonight on 3 at 7.00pm
Very nice item. Chris almost entirely mute but looking as impish as he ever did. Lovely excerpts from Will Oldham and Bill Callahan's tracks too.
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With all due and sincere respect, I would suggest that referring to various participants in this thread as closed minded tools of the PA "clique" was less than entirely helpful. Jus' saying...
Hate doing a climb-down but while everyone else is diverted by Cactus Kate's APN conspiracy, and while no one is looking over here, I'll say: fair cop, Craig, I was out of order. Okay, that feels better.
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(I started a 900+ page tome on Bobby Kennedy at New Years, hoping to finish it by Xmas).
Hope no one's ruined the ending for you.
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(Also, derigailleur, n. 2. what you wear to de graduation ceremony).
And in other neologism news, Oxford University Press USA has made "unfriend" its word of the year. Sadly, someone describes it as having "lex appeal". Also a few anti-Obama-inspired words in the list and that phrase "tramp stamp" for a tattoo on a woman's lower back. Not a 2009 coinage, that last one. Link here:
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He started by berating us for shelling out $150 to listen to other people's CD collections, but went on to treat us with the goods.
He's very good at berating. One of the first times I saw him live was in Wellington, at that venue that might have been called Paisley Park, c1991. Chris and Alec walk on stage, see that most of the crowd is sitting on the floor. Chris: "Get up! This isn't Dunedin."
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I suspect I am not alone in this.
You're absolutely not. Knox was like a conscience for a whole lot of people -- I only knew him really as his occasional employer at the Listener and fellow film critic, but you always felt like he would tell you when you were full of shit and you wouldn't mind. That's pretty rare. Although I seem to remember Matthew Banister, in his book on the Dunedin sound, seeing that as a bit "calvinist".
Lovely piece of writing. I'll be off to buy this.