Posts by Peter Johnston
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Hard News: Friday Music: Loxene and Beyond, in reply to Doug Hood,
Vic uni show soundcheck was the first time I heard Blue Monday.
New Order played Blue Monday on their second Vic Uni show (much better than the first night, featuring a swag of songs from the yet-to-be-released Power, Corruption & Lies LP). The song was so new it was titled 'How does it Feel' on the setlist, which I still have in my proud possession!
While the mix of the new album was playing on the PA after the soundcheck their manager Rob Gretton threatened us (the RadioActive crew) with physical violence if we recorded any of it. Fun times.
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I don’t know why he couldn’t ride a bike (I blame the parents), but it works beautifully as an image.
When Ed was a young lad it was pretty hard to teach him anything he didn't want to learn. But while he dug his heels in about riding a bike, he did agree to learning the guitar. And now thanks to his musical endeavours he can ride a bike too, so everything worked out alright in the end!
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Hard News: Radio Punks: So many stories, in reply to Jason Kemp,
At one time there were at least 3 Andrews on the crew. Andrew Topping, Andrew Boak and Andrew Bishop.
Ah all the Andrews! Had a very memorable night on the town courtesy of Mr Boak at the student radio conference one year. Now he really was a Radio Punk!
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Another vote for the 80s being the glory days, but hey, it was my time so of course I'd say that. (Oh and Russell I do remember Fiona from Active, she was on air towards the end of my days there ...)
But enough nostalgia, fact is 30-odd years on I'm listening to Active right now, and it's helping to keep me connected with all the wonderful new music that's around (so much music!).
Although I must confess I have been listening to a lot of Beats 1 over the last few weeks...
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I had no trouble getting everything up and running on both my iPhone and Mac, and spent most of yesterday listening to Beats 1 (except when it broke of course). Apart from the hype-y announcers I quite enjoyed it - basically it's a worldwide music radio station, which is quite a cool concept.
However today when I heard a couple of tracks I liked on Beats 1 and attempted to either save them to My Music, or open them in iTunes, nothing happened. So that seems to be broken, in NZ at least.
I haven't experienced the same problems with existing music or playlists in my iTunes library because over the last year (due to having free Spotify premium with Spark) I have been culling my iTunes and building up saved offline albums and playlists in Spotify. Which may very well remain the case, with Apple Music just becoming another discovery source along with RadioActive, NPR etc.
However it is worth noting that until recently saving albums in Spotify was a laborious process. So Apple may just need a little while to get it right.
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Parental pride means unless the Thunderdome is packed, I'll choose RB over CB on Monday, But should still be able to catch the end of her set.
The other big clash for me is Little Dragon vs Belle and Sebastian...
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Here he is with his old band …
This is one of hundreds of music videos I recorded off Radio With Pictures back in the 80s and kept on VHS, with the aim of digitising them all one day. But then youtube came along and nearly all of the videos had already been uploaded by others before I got round to it. Except for this Exponents clip, and a Triffids vid for "Hell of a Summer".
Glad I was able to put this one up though, because "If Only I Could Die..." is a hell of a song and Chris was a hell of a guitar player. RIP.
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Hard News: Friday Music: So much music I…, in reply to davesparks,
I enjoyed The Golden Echo much more than I expected. The Juan Maclean album is also a ripper - between that and the LCD Soundsystem "Long Goodbye" marathon I've listened to a lot of Nancy Whang this year. BTW I find Spotify OK to use on the iPhone app - apart from when it plays everything in shuffle mode which I had to trawl through google to find a way to turn off. Grrr.
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I didn’t know Eddie went to school with Lorde …
I should just point out (not sure if the irony is made that clear in the video) that the whole "Eddie went to school with Lorde" thing was something that Ryan Hemsworth made up on air, but was then latched onto by both Ella and Eddie who subsequently tweeted about how much they enjoyed going to school together, just to make things even more confusing. Crazy kids.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Virtual…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I got The Suzi Quatro Story for Christmas in 1975 but sold it along with most of my other 70s rock albums when punk hit a few years later (and yes I do regret doing that). I do still have the original 7" of The Normal's Warm Leatherette though. Although to be honest I do wish I'd held onto the Quatro LP, and a few others. Ahh nostalgia, it's not what it used to be...