Posts by Rob Stowell
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Hard News: To defame and deflect, in reply to Alfie,
if you’re not pro-Key, you’re obviously pro-terrorism
Hooten took that half-witted line on twitter, too. Remarkably dumb.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Christchurch,…, in reply to Hebe,
What sort of hair gel were you using for that effect?
Adrenaline and beer, I guess :)
(And a big dollop of luck, it broke over the hard top of the skull. And because the skins lost confidence when that move had no effect :) It definitely wasn't down to any special fighting skills me and my flatmate had.) -
Towards the end of this - https://soundcloud.com/knowyourproduct/john-key-on-nicky-hager-press-stand-up-040315
Pretty close to
"I guarantee you it'll be wrong, I guarantee it'll be extreme. If I was a good honest hard-working NZer, discount it massively and you'd be in the right space."
But check and check again whenever quoting anyone! -
Hard News: Friday Music: Christchurch,…, in reply to Mike O'Connell,
No Tag came to the Star and Garter in 1983 ... the boots and skins in the lounge bar
I remember this one cos some of the 'Auckland Skins' came to an after party at our flat and were shamelessly stealing anything not nailed down. In the ensuing fracas on the stairs, one of them broke a full beer-bottle over my skull.
Didn't even hurt. Without a pause we continued til we'd pushed them out the door. Combed the glass out of my hair and kept going.
A little hungover, but not even a headache next day :) -
It's looking like a total mess. NYT
On Monday, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian spymaster who once directed the militias’ deadly campaign against American forces in Iraq, was on the ground near Tikrit, according to a prominent Iraqi militia leader and the Iranian Fars news agency.
Among the nearly 30,000 fighters involved in the Tikrit operation were an estimated 700 to 1,000 Sunni tribal fighters, according to Iraqi officials.
.... some Iraqi officials have referred to the new operation as revenge for the Shiite victims of a massacre last summer in Tikrit by the Islamic State, raising the likelihood of violent score-settling. In a gruesome tableau that was publicized in videos and photographs by the Islamic State, militants — possibly aided by local Sunni tribesmen — slaughtered more than 1,000 Shiite soldiers from a nearby military base, Camp Speicher.Who and where will NZers be 'training'?
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Hard News: Haphazardly to war, in reply to nzlemming,
My reading was much the same.
Ditto. For context, there’s been a lot of frothing from the right about Obama failing to use the right words against ISIS. He's very careful to avoid the idea of a 'war on islam.' Not just to avoid offending key allies - it's exactly the message ISIS want out there.
And a bunch of vainglorious wanna-be-importants keep trumpeting the descent of angels and ‘grand clash of civilizations.’
It’s like they’ve never twigged to the religion of the soldiers in the Iraqi army and militias – and in the Kurdish peshmerga. The vast majority of people killed by ISIS are moslems; the vast majority of people fighting ISIS are moslems.
Somehow that doesn’t register with the armchair warriors. -
Hard News: Haphazardly to war, in reply to Mike O'Connell,
‘if Labour were in government our commitment to the latest US/UK adventure in Iraq would be pretty much identical’
I’m inclined to agree- but I *hope* there would have been a serious attempt to explain and justify the decision to us all. Re-taking Mosul could be a bloodbath – or it could go well. Avoiding sectarian division as much as possible is one role an international presence could play and that seems a worthy goal.
I don’t think under any other party than the Nats we’d have been forced to endure the infuriating charade where it’s very clear the decision was made- and likely a commitment given – many months ago, yet we’re forced to pretend it came down to a cabinet decision on Monday.
In the immortal words, etc – cut the crap. -
Hard News: Friday Music: Christchurch,…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Oh, man, thank you for that link!
'The Hoghton Hustle - the story of World Records' would make a marvellous movie - half 'The Harder They Come' half 'Boogie Nights'.
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Andrew Schmidt's 'mysterex' blog was the go-to for Chch 80s music scene writing, but it seems to have disappeared :(
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Hard News: Friday Music: Christchurch,…, in reply to Hebe,
Does that have pictures?
Not many, if any :) (There's a copy in the UC McMillan Brown collection - I went and looked it up!)
A former flatmate did an art-school photography project called 'Christchurch Boots' in 79-80. That would be good to end up at audioculture.
I like how Bruce Russell puts it:in my opinion it’s the psychic discharge of pent-up frustration and inchoate rage that explains this music. The people making it were fed up with doing what was expected of them by a narrow-minded and conformity-mad society of people that presented as wowsers and drank like navvies.