Posts by Simon Grigg
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
My memory of that third test is really quite vague and a bit confused but I have a strong memory (which is not surprising) of a whole bunch of people singing loudly There is No Depression in NZ. Don McGlashan was standing across the road and the crowd were seemingly unaware of the writer. I've never asked him what was going through his head at that moment but often wondered.
I had the privilege to spent most of an hour with an old buddy of mine, Will Ilolahia, the leader of the Polynesian Panthers, and founding manager of Herbs (it was under his leadership they released the still mighty Whats' Be Happen in 1981) at Radio NZ yesterday.
Will was one of the leaders of the Patu Squad that day and was arrested shortly afterwards. It was the intervention of Desmond Tutu - who appeared as a witness - that saved him from what was likely to be a severe sentence. He then left NZ for Tonga, saying he would never return. It was only the visit of Nelson Mandela, who asked to meet the Patu Squad, in '96 that bought him back.
Mandela told him that it was the news of the tour and protests so far away that lifted his spirits whilst in Robben Island and gave him the strength to carry on.
Will then found it possible to return to New Zealand.
The full interview is, I think, on RNZ this Saturday. I'm on it too, but the person you really need to hear is Will Ilolahia.
-
Hard News: That's Entertainment!, in reply to Danielle,
And I'm listening to the bonus disc of King of America RIGHT NOW!
I was listening to the main disc yesterday - how's that, huh? First time for ages - I'd forgotten what a truly wonderful long player that is:
Posted that on FB yesterday, and my comment there was that I lurve this version - it sounds like he's been up for days.
And if you're not sick of the tune, this medley too:
I like Elvis Costello.
-
Hard News: That's Entertainment!, in reply to recordari,
-
Hard News: That's Entertainment!, in reply to Hebe,
Way back in the dark ages, Iggy apparently appeared out the murk at the Androids gig at the British in Lyttelton and got onstage.
A few of us took Iggy to The Cook Street Markets party in 1980 (it was his birthday and we'd had a cake and a few glasses of the nasty plonk NZ called wine back then, so we were a bit pissed). Th'Dudes were onstage, part of the way through The Passenger - the ig walked up to the stage and just leered at Peter, who stopped mid-phrase.
Iggy declined the offer to go up, as he was in a go-to-the-bar mood but the band played no more Pop covers that night (they used to do a few).
-
One more Costello - the video he didn't want you so see, EC & The Attractions do The Merseybeats whilst legless:
-
I'm a long vocal Elvis fan, but this cover is may not work (from his current US tour):
The ABBA link goes further though. He was quite open about the fact that he lifted the the piano line from Dancing Queen for this:
-
Hard News: Rough times in the trade, in reply to Matthew Littlewood,
Those last two Gil Scott Heron records were particularly striking.
Ironically I understand from a music journalist buddy in the UK that GSH was less than happy with I'm New Here, which was mostly magically cobbled together from over two years of sessions by Richard Russell. He played almost nothing off it live AFAIK.
It rather confused US mainstream writers at the time of release too as I recall. They didn't seem to know what the hell to make of all those odd noises.
I'm with you though - few records moved me as much last year (and despite Lanier and now Reynolds, I thought 2010 was a hell of a year for new and innovative music)
-
Hard News: Rough times in the trade, in reply to Danielle,
but what you're not mentioning is that Elvis fused black rhythm and blues with white country, and that's why he had such crossover appeal.
He did, but he wasn't the first by a long shot.
For example:
-
Hard News: Rough times in the trade, in reply to Jeremy Andrew,
Svengali = Simon Fuller?
I guess you could argue that he changed the face of popular music for better or worse. I'm not sure he added to the long term vocabulary though.
-
Hard News: Rough times in the trade, in reply to Russell Brown,
There's not necessarily anything wrong with working with something from the 1950s -- it's but a second ago in the context of the span of human popular culture.
Rock'n'roll, too, was a part of something much bigger. A melding together of the so called race records and the hillbilly music traditions, it is identifiable in a strand going back at least 50 years before. It's easy to think that it arrived with Elvis because that was the pitch and it's become lore.
It could, and has often been, argued that Sam Phillips just found a hell of a delivery system (Elvis) and a huckster showman to sell it (the Colonel).
On one hand, dubstep really has opened up new vistas. On the other, it's about 90% shit.
The vistas and the rhythmic possibilities are the part I like most - although there have been some monster bits in that 10% which wasn't shite.
I think that about most art generally, to be honest. Of course the really good ones are in a minority, that's almost by definition.
As a part-time, quite anal, hobby I edit a bit on Discogs - partially trying to get as many NZ acts on there as I can, because so many New Zealand bands, labels and musicians are so useless when they arrive at the internet bit. It's very easy to think of the times we live in as a swamp of music, where vast proportions of what is made simply sinks without trace, but put next to the post Beatles flood of 7" singles by bands nobody has ever heard of from every two-bit town on every continent and island on the planet, it's a comparative desert. We forget. And mostly they were awful.
the contextualized setting of what made Elvis and the Beatles super stars is an unlikely thing to re-occur
Who knows? There were less obvious contexts that made a huge difference too - the arrival for the first time of programmed Top40 radio in the US coincided with the release of I Wanna Hold Your Hand and it became the first record to benefit from it. That, as much as the oft touted blowback from Dallas, 22/11/63, was a key reason the Beatles broke America.
That in a way is like the sort of technology and content delivery transformations we are seeing all the time now. Throw a powerful figure, like a Geffen or a Tom Parker, into the mix and who knows.
Game-changing new delivery systems plus svengali is a very potent combination.