So where's the Songs about Christchurch?

Christchurch’s devastating earthquakes have spawned a whole range of cathartic ‘support’ songs.  

But really for the number of songs penned by N.Z musicians pre-quake wise on the topic of ‘Christchurch’ as a living-place, is by my count thin on the proverbial ground.    

Taking-out The Exponents anthem until recently Christchurch hasn’t been top of the subject matter amongst local song writers.   

This is bemusing since writing about a place you know must surely make easy subject-matter, stir up the mental juices – apparently not?    

A situation made more perplexing when you take into account over their lifespans most Christchurch bands are lucky to travel further afield than Dunedin, sell their music as north as Whangarei so when ‘Christchurch’ pop-ups in the lyrics somewhere it isn’t going to be exactly ‘foreign’ to the prime audience.  

The only reason I can think of why Christchurch song-writers avoid penning tunes about a place so dear to their heart is: embarrassment.  

The traditional Kiwi cringe factor (TV Ones Sunday at 7:30) 

 

Kiwi's are somehow inferior, no one in Britain or USA wants to hear what we have to say.  

A notable exception amongst the locals is probably Roy Montgomery. 

I am open to further submissions here but it is kind-of sad Christchurch bands don’t sing the praises or otherwise of the place they live and often die.     

 

My humble ‘off the top’ list comprises just:

Exponents ‘Christchurch’

Roy Montgomery (heaps on above album)

Steve Allen ‘Join Together’ (1974 Commonwealth Games Tune)

Opshop ‘City of Cities’  

And who could rightfully leave out……

 

 

 

 

  

Is this what six grand gets ya?

ARTIST: Victoria Girling-Butcher (no she didn’t ride in The British Equestrian Team)

TAX-PAYER FUNDING: $6,000

FUNDING APPROVED BY NZOA: April 2012

VIDEO UP-LOADED ON YOU TUBE:  September 2012

VIEWS PER DAY IN ITS FIRST WEEK: 50  

Come-on you are pulling my leg – this is what six grand gets you in terms of a video??  

Some tart jiggling up & down like she wants to go to the toilet, then twirling her hair and dancing around like a singer from B52’s all in a darkened studio?

Is there a Jungian concept to this I am not deep enough to grasp hold of?

Will it look different if I have ‘a smoke’ first?  

Is this video impossible to view if you are over 30?  

Just how many similar videos could one shoot in an eight hour day? 

Aren't all computers loaded with Windows Video Maker?  

Corporate Welfare courtesy of N.Z On Air

This is a video by Dictaphone Blues that came out a week or so back.

It was funded by you and me courtesy of N.Z On Air.

In-fact the $6,000 it cost you and me was allocated back in April.   

  

Around the same time I spent six hours of my own time making a humble You Tube Video of my own.

This is it:

  

Both videos are currently attracting about 20 views a day.

Theirs is better – but better doesn’t always mean more popular as this example shows.

Piss all views in the overall scheme of things.

But I’m not too worried because I do it for the love not to make money for myself, certainly not to support a multi-national corporate like EMI.

I hear you ask "What’s this got to do with EMI, a company that made approx NZ$600 million in 2010?"   

Well Dictaphone Blues are signed to EMI.

Do you feel this is a good use of your taxes?  

WANTED: MUSIC FROM CHRISTCHURCH ALTERNATIVE MUSICANS FOR A COMPILATION CD

The Concept: A Compilation CD featuring alternative music from Christchurch, one where the bands market the music and reap the rewards. A sort of ground-roots musical cooperative, where we have local bands working together to market their talent.    

What’s it going to be called?:  ‘They Crawled from The Rubble’  

What do you means by ‘alternative’?:  This CD will offer an avenue for artists who wouldn’t normally get a look-in in the commercial world. I welcome bedroom, dodgy garage recordings, taboo subject matter etc. It just has to be ‘interesting’ and provocative. Google: ‘Natures Worst’ and you’ll get the gist. Kindly: for Christ’s sake no rap, middle of the road cobblers or death metal.

So how do I get on this CD?: You send me the MP3 to whenpa at gmail. If I and my elite team of musso’s don’t like it, please don’t take it personally. I have had CHART Disc turn-down my own music. It's part of the scene. Send us something else that may pass muster.   

What am I signing up for?:  The last thing I want to do is commit my own money to a CD, then be left to marketing it and having a 100 CD’s left in my study to get rid of, when I only have so many relatives to give-to at Christmas into that sort of shit. Remember this is a cooperative effort – not just ‘my baby’. By submitting a MP3 you acknowledge you will commit to purchasing a minimum of 10 CD’s. That’s loosely $75 to $100 (the exact amount will vary depending on the number of artists, standard of packaging etc) Note: I will need this money up front to get the CD’s printed. 

What’s in it for me?: (a.) You get something ‘out there in the market’. Band ‘A’ may sell their CD to Punter ‘X’ who thinks “boy I like that song by Band B” and come to your next gig or buy other stuff you have floating around. We feed off each other talents or lack of them! (b.) You get a CD at wholesale rates to sell for what-ever you can get. You can order as many as you like as long as you pay for them in advance (c.) This is a ‘no brainer’: the whole thing about playing in a band is playing to, building an audience.    

Will it be on Bandcamp?: No, but it will be in our two remaining record shops.   

What is in it for you?: Not a cent, the knowledge I assisted local musicians, bought a smile to a few dials, is enough for me. Plus it's the only way I can get my own band 'out there'.   

Who the hell are you?: Paul Gilbert from WhEn PEts ATtacK!  

When will it come-out?: Roughly March 2013. Good things take a bit of time, it’s not going to be easy bringing this altogether. Don’t sweat it if it takes longer. Delays will not be down to me, rather artist apathy.  

Oh yeah: There will be an album launch gig, where we’ll have as many bands as possible playing a short set of stuff including their mega-hit off the album.

Who is going to promote this?:  You! Spread the word! Tell othere about this grand co-operative project  

Got a Question?: Then why not place it in the comments section below? Other artists may have a similar query. Please no anonymous comments. Tell us who you are.

R.I.P JON LORD: DEEP PURPLE IN CHRISTCHURCH 1975

The first album I ever purchased was ‘Deep Purple in Rock’. The year was 1972, the price was a staggering NZD 7.99 – which probably coverts to NZD 50.00 in current terms. I still have this album 40 years later. I also managed to see DP live in 1975 at QE2 Stadium here in Christchurch. This was a controversial concert which had the local Press’s ‘Letters to The Editor’ deluged with complaints about the noise. Deep Purple was the first major concert in the stadium which had hosted the Commonwealth Games the year prior. The band arrived into Christchurch in a 707 ‘freighter’ chocker on a Sunday with what was then amongst the world’s loudest sound systems. Almost certainly ‘the’ loudest PA to ever land in Christchurch. Anyway rather naively the bands speakers were set up facing into the cavernous main stand from midway across the grass infield. Aided by the ever present easterly wind and the ‘shell’ of the stand, the band could be heard clearly all over the city that Monday evening (17^th November 1975) My parents could hear them playing in Burnside which is approx. 10kms east of QE2. For those like me with tickets in the said stand the sound was deafening. How deafening? Well the next day I had to go home from school because I couldn’t hear a bloody thing! My mates cousin drove me to the concert and on the home journey none of us bother to speak because we weren’t trained in lip reading! Local residents to QE2 wanted further concerts banned, but settled on the reduced sound levels. Footnote: QE2 Stadium was decimated by the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake and is due to be demolished sometime shortly.   The doco gem below was from the concert they did in Auckland a four days previous to Christchurch. Set-list of the N.Z Tours songs here.  

               

Behold: Kiwi T.V Advert Re-Makes

The Registered Sex Offenders have re-made a couple of evergreen Kiwi TV Commercial staples.

So which is better?


The original or the piss-take re-make? 


 




   
  
 

Mekanik Kommando

There’s a comment below the video for this on You Tube for ‘Stop and Play’ (1982) that states succinctly my own thoughts about this era of music. 

“Pull the fuck up and DROP ME OFF somewhere between "1979- 1983" and DO NOT fucking EVER ALLOW ME to LEAVE!!!...” 

The Dutch bands Mekanik Kommando original lifespan was 1980-88, but they recently reappeared a few years ago with some new material, even a myspace site. MK have been loosely dubbed a New Wave band in the music press, but they certainly have a ‘harder’ industrial sound to the stuff I’ve heard & couldn’t be say compared to Devo or Brit Synth acts. New Wave is such a broad term akin to placing all the global religions under the same banner. I prefer this bands early darker, more experimental stuff. Heaps more on You Tube. Well, well worth an ear-wig, so let me leave you with this one for example. 

Katrina and The Waves on Steroids

I spotted Auckland band The Raw Nerves debut single over at Undertheradar. My ears immediately picked-up their song ‘Steroids’ has an identical riff to the bubble-gum hit by Katrina and The Waves ‘Walking On Sunshine’ and so will yours. So go have a squizz, tweek about with these You Tubes below and you too can synchronise both tunes, one a cover of the hit, to sound all but identical. The bass and drums especially.

   

SEXY ANIMALS, MONSTA MACHINE, SQUIRM AT DUX LIVE 16/05/2012

It was a 'school night' as my wife eloquently put it i.e. Wednesday.

I got home at 2.

Pissed.

Which may account for the blurred photo's!

The Good things happening to ear-drums on Ground Zero Radio

You need to listen-up, in a biblical sense of the term. 

There’s over 350 Kiwi songs currently rotating their bits-off 24/7 on the one and only Ground Zero Internet Radio.    

It’s high time you got inquisitive and goose-bumpy about the prospect of listening to:

     

?Fog Enterprises

Anthesiac

Artisan Guns

Atomic Blossom

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

Cat Venom

Cool Cult

Cut Off Your Hands

Die! Die! Die!  

Eight Living Legs

Froithead

Edwards Gains

Full Moon Fiasco

Futuresports

God Bows to Mat

Hiss Explosion

Dr Kevorkian & The Suicide Machine

Lontalius

Lovehaters

Killing Bear

The Puddle

Bob McRob

Mammal Airlines

Mestar

My Deviant Daughter

NRA

The Shocking Pinks

Red Steers

Spacedust

SPUD

Steffan Van Soest Hit-Machine

Substandard

T54

Triffids

Wilberforces

Yokel Ono  

Heaps, heaps more I’m simply way too lazy to type out. 

Besides I don’t want to spoil the surprise by listing all 350 plus songs, now do I?    

Seriously where are you going to hear this stuff if you aren’t listening to GZR?  

Rhema?  

PRESS HERE TO LISTEN.  

DUNEDIN’S FORSYTH BARR STADIUM WILL ALWAYS FACE AN UP-HILL BATTLE TO ATTRACT MAJOR ARTISTS

There are only a small elite cliché of rock royalty that are going to fill a full  'outdoor' stadium anywhere in New Zealand.  Coldplay is one of them. Their entourage, lighting, sound equipment requires three cargo aircraft to travel with them around the globe. We are talking a 747 ‘Jumbo’ amongst the mix. So what are the chances of getting a band of Coldplays magnitude playing outside Auckland? Well if you were say Dunedin the chances are nil. Your money-pit (a.k.a Forsth Barr Stadium) will remain empty as it normally does 99% of the time. The only noise to be heard will be a tractor preparing the pitch for the next (charity?) rugby game, not Jonny Buckland making sure his guitar rig is geared up correctly for the nights sold-out concert. You see the ‘rush of blood’ individuals that lauded the 220 million stadium as being suitable for ‘International Acts’ didn’t bother to factor in one critical factor attracting the Coldplays of this world – the length of Dunedin Airports runway. It’s too short for wide-bodied aircraft like theirs. This means Dunedin is pissing into the wind if it thinks it will ever attract say the U2, Lady GaGa or Madona’s of this world. They all employ 747 freighters, that can land only at Auckland and the presently ravaged city of Christchurch. Forsyth Barrs managers Dunedin Venues Management Ltd is therefore on a permanent global search for ‘B’ graders who can attract enough mainland punters. The second tare willing to either use the stadiums sound system or prepared to go to the major expense, time hauling it 1,400kms down from Auckland and then back again. In its only major outing, Elton John, the stadiums 1.5 million dollar sound-system’s sound was described as wishy-washy. That’s to say some of the audience got perfect clarity and others, ironically mostly those in the more expensive seats, got an overall sound that floated in and out. The management blamed the wind that night for the sound distorting in places. The level of the wind also meant the retractable roof above the stadium became noisy in the larger gusts. Dunedin Venues Management Ltd called the wind ‘extreme’. Windy? Surely not in Dunedin which boasts N.Z’s best weather? So all the cards are stacked firmly against Forsyth Barr Stadium ever becoming a major concert venue. What opportunities there are will evaporate to almost lotto proportions once Christchurch’s stadium is fully re-built. Forsyth Barr will always be essentially a Rugby Stadium no matter how Dunedin Venues Management etc want to package it.  

KILLING BEAR’S KILLER VIDEO

Hey grab a load of this ‘O’ for awesome home-made video from Pukerua Bay band ‘Killing Bear!’ If you don’t like this you need to have sex more often and wanking doesn’t count on that tally either. For the geographically challenged  Pukerua Bay is on the Kapiti Coast kind of near Wellington. Wild bear population in that neck of the woods = zero. Wild beer population = measured in thousands of gallons per annum! The two-piece KB do every bloody thing themselves – recording, production, clips, merch – all in house, shameless number eight wire. Their 13 song debut album ‘Wild Beasts’ is available for a miserly 10 bucks over on bandcamp. That’s only 8 bucks in proper money. Buy or die old and bitter.        

Kim DotCom wants to stick to hard-drives and motherboards

AFTER ONE LISTEN THE QUESTIONS THAT COME TO MIND INCLUDE: 

1.)    Does the guy from The Black Eyed Peas save his half decent compositions for his own band?

2.)    The last rapper his size was Biggie Smalls and we know what happened to him

3.)    Can’t a zillionaire like Dot Com afford more than a crappy photo-shopped video? 

4.)    With all those billions of songs uploaded on-to Megaupload surely Herr Dot Com could have rifled through some files and plagiarised something better than this dribble?

5.)    My money is on John Banks to don a lead-guitar and do a better retort. The good oil has it it’ll be a cover of ‘Leaving on a Jet-Plane’ with a B-Side ‘I Fought the Law and the Law Won’    

6.)    Is it physically possible for someone to sit through the whole thing?  

                   EXCLUSIVE TO THIS BLOG JOHN BANKS COME-BACK!

TIME TO RE-THINK N.Z MUSIC MONTH ONE THINKS

I must be getting old. I’m finding it bloody hard to get excited by N.Z Music Month. Previously I had looked forward to the event with an element of childhood-like excitement. Maybe it’s the line-up, post-earthquake malaise? Either-way I can’t get into N.Z Music Month 2012. Perhaps it’s a grand exercise that worked at one point and is now working its way to inevitable extinction? To use a Kiwi colloquialism “it’s done its dash”? Is it too long? A month is 8 per cent of a year, at least when I was at school. Rounded-up that’s close to 10 percent, inclusive of pre-publicity. Over-kill? Could not the worthy promotion of home-grown music be condensed into say two weeks? Two full on weeks which I’m sure even the most sober and Philistine Radio Stations could buy into. Two weeks of quality. Two weeks that exhibited N.Z Music in all its derivatives. My bet is punters would still attend gigs in the same numbers if it was scheduled over two weeks as against four. As a libertarian I can’t buy-into quotas = you must play more N.Z Music. The market must decide what is played and not some grey-shoed bureaucrat in Wellington. Two weeks or four won’t mean radio-stations or the media will promote N.Z Music any more than currently – that’s to say mediocre levels. So may be the powers that be behind N.Z Music Month should look at re-packaging the event. Put their emphasis behind even ‘exporting’ acts, fund a tour or two to Australia over this period? Get N.Z Music into schools with bands playing lunch-time concerts. Run competitions for ‘New Zealands Best Two Piece.’ N.Z Best Home-Made Song Video. The opportunities to promote local music are endless. They don’t necessarily need to be confined to nominated ‘months’. Irrespective of the vehicle to promote local music the best way to support these artists still remains buying their music and attending their gigs. Just watching a local bands You Tube Video gives artists a boast.  

Tune into the best of N.Z Alternative Music on ‘Ground Zero’ Internet Radio.

VOLUME MAGAZINE IS NO MORE

I’m gutted. I’ve just learnt that Volume Mag will soon be no longer. Issue number 33 will be the last. This was a worthy addition to the local musical scene, full of interesting stuff, reviews, eclectic shit. Of the 32 issues that came out I guess I got to scan say 20 and there wasn’t one I could point to and say I wasn’t edified in some way. Clearly it can’t have been making $’s for its masters, media moguls APN Group. ‘No money in it’ is probably overall the theme-song for N.Z Music as a whole. In its seven month existence head honco Sam Wicks and his team of writers did a splendid job and deserve our accolades. Let’s hope someone takes this ball and runs with it.       

N.Z Olympic Song: What’s next ‘Climb Every Mountain?’

Remind me again; are sedimentary sports of golf and bowls at The Olympics these-days? It pays to ask these things given the song chosen as N.Z’s Olympic theme-song (above) sounds like it was penned by someone living in their seventh decade and a closet fan of Harry Connick Jnr?     

Let’s cut to the chase here – who the fuck can take a lyrics like "Through sweat blood and tears, you followed your dreams" seriously?

Say one of our athletes looking for motivation? 

Kiwi fans looking for a hum-along pick me up?  

On the motivation scale this croon ‘Stand Tall’ fails to register, is as inspirational as a headmaster telling the assembly to “pick-up your rubbish at lunchtime.”  

Why not do a re-make of ‘Climb Every Mountain’ and be done with?  

No I’ll go one better and suggest a re-make of Craig Scott’s Commonwealth games tune from 1974. 

The song ‘Stand Tall’ was apparently penned by Sam RB who frequents Queen Street along with humanities flotsam and jetsam. 

Unbeknown to you and me the streets of N.Z are a hotbed of busking talent and not just the haunt for some drunk doing a rendition of ‘Ten Guitars’ on ukulele.  

Wellington’s Blanketman’s posthumous rap anthem “Gotta Dollar Ya C==t”?” must surely be in the pipeline?   

But back to ‘Stand Tall’ and who the fuck decided this was a worthy song to fire-up the troops at the front and the masses at home supping coffee to stay awake in front of their telly’s? 

You don’t need to be a T.V detective to follow the blood-trail on this one.  

Scraping the surface like a sandfly it appears Sam’s benefactor, the man behind his meteoric rise to fame and a free trip to London on the tax-payer, was one Eddie Rayner. 

You’ll remember him as the keyboard player from Split Enz.  

That’s the same band the ‘Play it Strange’ chief executive Mike Chunn, the people who organised this song quest, played bass for.   

Chunn is quoted as saying “Sam RB was a major talent who had achieved against the odds.” 

With all these odds and strange’s getting bandied around here you’d be forgiven for being confused how ‘Stand Tall’ could have possibly been the best offering from the 300 entries received? 

Sadly looking at The Finalists like ‘Rise Up Your Flag’ (video below) which Viagra have picked-up on – the answer appears to be resounding yes!    

PS: I wonder if this guy has a good lawyer?

MORE SEXIST SONGS

Part Two of my on-going hunt to locate & embrace The Worlds Most Sexist Songs.

Some sad bastard had to do it!

No further preamble or edification necessary, one quick play and the songs speak for themselves.

Pssst...just between you and me I play guitar on one of these clips.

                                                     DEVO: I Need a Chick

                                         WhEn PEts ATtacK!: Home Economics

The Passage: Love Song

Pussy Galore: Cunt Tease  

Zappa correctly foretells on of the key reasons behind the decline of the Music Industry

I remember distinctly when I heard Frank Zappa had died. I had just comeback from a long-weekend on the piss down south (1993) and was to say the least very jaded. A week earlier I had imported a couple of his more obscure titles that were next to impossible to get locally and they were both playing in the car. I also remember the first Zappa album I got ‘Apostrophe’. It came from a long-since defunct record shop in what was then the Whitcombe and Tombs Arcade (Christchurch) Buying an autographed photo from a dealer in London in 1985. Zappa was put simply a musical genius, more-ever he was an astute and insightful human, a libertarian battler. The first clip is dead on the money why modern music is so ‘vanilla’ bland, how the rot set-in. Rather spookily it came out in 1989 (as best I can google)          

PRESENTING FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE…..GROUND ZERO RADIO

Ground Zero Radio is N.Z’s only dedicated Alternative Music Radio Station. 

Beamed over the internet Ground Zero plays Kiwi Alternative music 24/7. 

The diverse, enriching music other stations limit to specialist shows or play in between droll tunes by The Finns, Dave Dobbyn and Herbs etc.  

It’s free and painless to register with the online Station hosts live365.   

This new Station is a non-commercial operation. 

It actually costs the DJ i.e. me money, not to mention ‘oddles of time to operate.  

It survives by fellow Kiwi's who are passionate about local music tuning-in.