New Zealand
Scientists have concluded unusually high populations of garden-worms lead to a
series of devastating- earthquakes in Christchurch in 2010 and 2011.
Home composts
came-in for particular criticism.
To prevent
a re-occurrence citizens of the Christchurch, dubbed The Garden City, have been
urged to concrete over existing composts and tarmac any areas when could offer
garden worms sanctuary.
Liam Finn recorded his 3rd and latest album in a
Brooklyn studio overlooking the Manhattan skyline.
Finn junior has been residing
the New York for four years now, but he hasn’t forgotten home.
Seriously man, how could he forget the free hand-outs
available to musicians such as him via New Zealand On Air?
Indeed residency, or lack of it is seemingly no barrier to ex-pat musicians
receiving the support of N.Z taxpayers.
Number two example is Flip Grater.
Flip loves her new digs in Paris, regularly nips home to
sign-up for N.Z Music’s equivalent of Social Welfare.
But back to Liam who is clearly estranged from his old man,
can’t make a similar call to the ones I get from my sons “You couldn’t lend me?”
Not only did Liam spend your/my money recording his album in
New York he also shot the video for his publically funded single ‘Snug As Fuck’
there as well.
$12,000 of funding went offshore, no prob, no strings
attached so we all get to feel goose-bumpy an Kiwi with a lofty musical surname thinks about us now and again as he mopes about his Manhattan apartment.
One journalist described his album The Nihilist as ‘dynamic
and cinematic’ and ‘exploring Finn’s
subconscious’. In my mind when I close my eyes he sounds much like Conan Mockasin
and I like Conan Mockasin.
It’s the
beginning of 2012 and you are producing a video for local group AWA entitled ‘Papatuanuku’
which is Maori for Earth Mother.
You have
N.Z on Air Funding and the underlying theme of the song can’t get much more authentically
native New Zealand……
"Toitū
he whenua, whatungarongaro he tangata" = Land is permanent, man disappears
So what do
you do with your $6K of N.Z taxpayer funding?
You produce
a video depicting scenes from The Queensland floods!
Don’t worry
there was plenty of earthquake footage from Christchurch that would have
conveyed the underlying theme of man’s frailties.
Like N.Z
doesn’t suffer the odd flood or two, if its climate change you want to
highlight.
But oh no just
grab some helicopter footage from across the Tasman to fit the theme.
Ignore an
abundance of similar public domain footage from N.Z.
Most people
from overseas won’t tell the difference between Australia/ New Zealand anyway and
besides N.Z on Air have no checks and balances, won’t give a rats if it’s
Australia you are helping to promote.
Big Day Out 2014: Just seven arrests, kick-outs from the
33,000 strong crowd, five for intoxication.
Wellington Sevens 2014: 270 removed from the Westpac Stadium
for being too pissed or causing trouble, 20 arrests and the emergency
department at Wellington Hospital left inundated with scores of injured drunks from the 27,000
attendees.
Why the difference?
If anything, media bias you’d have thought the younger demographic
at BDO should have produced more trouble.
The answer to this quandary is very simple….as an
entertainment package 7’s rugby sucks!
It’s fucking boring, a stupid concept having some third tare
players from non-rugby playing nations run about a full sized pitch made for twice the number, in a bunch
of miss-match games held over a whole day.
Every time you look at a 7’s crowd on the telly there was gaping
holes in the stands, accompanied by the dulcet hums of chattering females most
of whom couldn’t even name you a single player, tell you who won the last game.
The only time the crowd ‘got into it’ was when New Zealand took
the field and singing drunken renditions to Counting the Beat played over the
stadiums PA in order to keep the crowd conscious, from making another trip to the
bar.
Sevens’s is supposedly a sell-out weekend, yet seemingly no
one wants to stay the whole time.
Forget what the NZRFU spin-doctors have to say - the on-field
sport of 7’s fails to excite the crowd enough to keep their attention over a
day.
It’s getting pissed first, getting dressed up second and
remind me what is third again?
It's touch rugby, eh?
It’s a wonder more people at the Cake Tin didn’t get shit
faced given the alternative was watching Portugal play USA or Kenya versus
Scotland in a minority sport even the IRB has scant interest in.
Conversely BDO produced a world-class line-up (Pearl Jam,
Hives, Mudhoney etc.) One that evidently appealed to virtually every ticket
holder, enough to: avoid starting a fight, attempt to get onto the stage and remain lucid
enough not to attract attention of security or the coppers.
Listening to the music is the priority for the BDO crowd, not
dressing up like the Flintstones and Teletubbies, waiting to boo the English
team as some sort of badge of Kiwi nationhood rather than a cringe-worthy embarrassment.
Music is #1 to BDO attendees so much so, that at the last
concert in 2012 no-one was booted out of the stadium!
Meanwhile at the 7’s that year you had a fan out on the
pitch head-high tackling a player in his undies.
Probably the highlight of the tournament for most punters.
Rugby officials can only dream of having a crowd at the
sevens just interested in rugby.
Still imagine if you banned fancy-dress and booze from the
Wellington event.
How many die hearts would turn-up?
Less than a Phoenix game is my bet!
As an entertainment package clearly the Big Day Out kills
The Wellington Sevens.
Up-Date after last weekend (15th and 16th
Feb): 34,000 were at Queenstown’s Gibbston Estate for their Summer Tour Concert
involving 10cc etc. Zero arrests and zero kick-outs. 55,000 went to Leagues inaugural
‘Nines’ tournament and we saw just four evictions and two arrests. If ever you
wanted evidence that the game of sevens fails to keep a Kiwi crowds interest,
most people go to Wellington to party and get pissed you have it ‘in spades’.
‘The Play It Strange Trust was established in November 2003
for the purpose of encouraging young New Zealanders to develop interests and
skills in songwriting (sic) and musical performance’
Let me start by first stating PIS does a great job in my books.
But hey here in New Zealand rugby is demi-god material.
One Sean
Fitzpatrick is a bloody legend, rugby player extraordinaire, even if you've never heard of him being under 30.
And in New Zealand, as we all know, All Blacks are very
important people, captains more so.
Get an All Black in undies and you’ll literally be propelled
above the entire N.Z Winter Olympics Team when it comes to ‘sports’ coverage on
our tellys.
Even AB’s that haven’t lived in New Zealand for over a
decade, have an English wife and for all intents and purposes English daughters
as well - they count for a lot.
But All Blacks in positions of power within N.Z Arts circles?
Surely they have the same credibility as an ex farmer judging
abstract sculpture?
Take a deep breath: ex AB Sean Fitzpatrick is on the board
of a trust that’s modus is to inspire Kiwi children to get into music.
No that’s no spello.
This is a music trust, not a rugby reunion committee.
Picture Sean on-stage at a school-time assembly suggesting
to bug-eyed schoolboys at “You lads in the first fifteen should consider taking
up cello, writing songs & not hurting yourselves in nasty contact sports.”
Issuing a media statement: “We should be having more Secondary
School Scholarships for those children who want to play violin and not the
front row.” That’s never going to happen. A speech advocating Bring Back Rucking I could believe.
For starters he doesn’t live here.
You normally pay to hear him speak, on Rugby, not music,
silly-billy.
His supposed love of music doesn't feature anywhere on his lavish self-penned celebrity speaker profiles.
I would doubt Sean Fitzpatrick has ever attended a PIS board-meeting,
nor any of their awards evenings etc.
He is but a celebrity cardboard cut-out.
What qualifications, expertise can Sean Fitzpatrick possibly offer,
that couldn’t be filled by a N.Z based Kiwi whose ‘heart’ is really into music?
Fitzpatrick’s inclusion on the board actually diminishes the
PIS Trust’s credibility in the eyes of those into the N.Z music scene.
It smacks of ‘small townitis’ and ‘tokenism’.
It’s a joke.
A bad one for those that truly care about music in N.Z.
That awkward time when we get to see ‘the anointed’ bands
who shamelessly suckle on the tax-payers tit, get their hobbies subsidised via the good peoples at:
So let me apply the blowtorch to this month’s (November2013) recipients of taxpayer funding.
Yes, I hate this system:
Dan Aux is Australian! As Rob Mayes subsequently points out on the 'Sounds Like Us' Facebook, one of the judges, Willy Macalister works with Dan at George FM. I gather Willy did the right thing and abstained from voting on his work-mates submission?
N.Z Unfair couldn’t even get the song name and band right
for ‘Bangladesh’ a song by Hourglass. They had it ‘Hour Glass (sic)’ by
Bangladesh!
Moorhouse is a fucking naff boy-band like 500 others
floating around the globe allowing girls to stuff pillow between their legs at
night and hump them.
There’s Midnight Gallery’s song ‘Scars’ featuring Raiza Biza.
Raiza wasn’t not happy with one bite of the apple. He got another shot in
November round of funding with his video ‘Flashback’ – which I might add is
already on You Tube.
This is the video for The Wlyds ‘Confusion’. Why are tax-payers now funding a second one?
Yuma Zouma? I searched google. I searched Facebook. I
searched Bandcamp. I drew a blank apart from a similarly spelt South African
dancing troupe. How they are going to make it in the modern day of the internet
is beyond me. Clearly this small hurdle of having zero internet presence is no
impediment to NZOA funding.
Part of keeping New Zealand On Air we are funding an artist
called ‘Grand Rapids’. The namesake has
a murder rate that makes Soweto seem safe. This is the cover to his first EP. Is
that the beach at St Heliers perhaps? Lyall Bay?
Brooke Duff is getting funding for ‘Nothing Compares’. Tell
me this is 'the' cover and I will be cutting and pasting this entire post to the
Broadcasting Minister, after I stop primeval screaming and spending 15 minutes on my punch bag.
There is a video for 'More Than I was' by James Read (ex Feelers) already up-loaded on You Tube a month ago personally by none other than James. So far its gleaned a paltry 150 views. Surely that was
feedback enough for NZOA to say “no” to $6,000? Providing a link here would have only encouraged him.
Last but not least this is my bands video.
I don’t give ‘a rats’ if you like it or not. I'm not here to critique the bands mentioned, nor their videos but 'the system of funding'. The base criteria, which effectively is being washed over: to promote New Zealand Music.
Why I’ve included it, is because (a.) it is currently happily
chugging away on You Tube out-scoring a number of the ‘blessed’ videos you paid
for over time (b.) it was a real hoot to make, came from our own creativity not some
production companies (c.) was made with zero budget (d.) it’s a shameless New
Zealand song which is a change (e.) and why the hell not plug your own stuff?! Piss all other people will.
So we all need to move past our individual loves and hates
when it comes to local music/artists. Okay I’ll make an exception for Moorhouse and the bloke from The Feelers.
And ask yourself “Is N.Z on Air working to promote New Zealand music” given some of the examples provided?
I say not.
I say NZOA's criteria is way too loose.
The logical starting point for change: can anyone actually define what New Zealand Music is?
BTW this isn't my first NZOA article.
Search the site for more vitriol, call for change.
It must really fuck David ‘Blowing in the Wind’ Rovics off
being American.
Via his songs he doesn’t have a good word to say about the
place he calls home, votes Democratic and pays taxes.
But at least he does pay tax somewhere.
He hoped to come to New Zealand and ply his trade and keep
all the coin.
Duplicitously rallies along with his followers against corporate greed in music yet
is a tax dodger himself.
Perhaps “the little bit” of money you made in N.Z could have
translated into a “little bit” of tax towards our health system etc, eh Davy?
Back to the facts, not hyperbole.
Our Immigration Service
told Rovics the same as anyone else entering the country to work “you’ll need a work permit to do that” and off he trots into the world of
paranoia implying it was a Governmental plot stemming via Washington to
Wellington to have him banned.
That’s delusion one.
Funny how he was similarly banned from playing in that
fellow puppet state of the CIA, Canada, for exactly the same reason?
You would have thought a musician and his management team
would have worked-out that a number of countries have different ‘sovereign’ employment
rules and sort them out before you book a gig. If it's good enough for Devo and Radiohead to pay tax in New Zealand it's good enough for a c-grader like you.
Psssst....let you into a secret...if you are going to take drugs it also doesn’t pay to boast
about it on your blog site.
No need to bug your phone, place agents on your tail 24/7 when
the shadowy figures of our respective secret services can simply access your
lifestyle on the internet.
Having our own laws has up-set Rovics who ingratiates
himself with all Kiwis by describing the country as “three million people and
60 million sheep and is located in the middle of nowhere.”
It’s 4.5 million and 40 million by the way Dave.
Still going to a school system where the first thing they teach
is “get under the desk Jimmy has his fathers hunting rifle” it wasn’t a bad
guess.
One imagines the pissed-off Rovics penning a new ‘blowing in the wind’
folky ditty about New Zealand.
‘Great Satan’s Kid Brother’ has a certain ring to it.
The Occupy bunch will buy into it and everything you have to
say about the evils of the country you carry a passport from, hate so much.
Now to the all- important second strain of Rovics delusion.
The belief you are going to change the world singing this drively
Woodstocky stuff.
Musicians can change the world.
Like fuck they can.
The only people that listen to your stuff are ‘the converted’.
The left-wing anti-American greenies at you first concert in
New Zealand, inside a Nelson yurt, will be left-wing anti-American greenies
before/after you began strumming and singing say the praises of that serial
sex-offender Julian Assanges flunky Bradley Manning.
I wonder if Rovics will now be changing the lyrics of his ‘theme’
song after the namesake is on record last week stating “I want to start off
with an apology. I am sorry that my actions hurt people. I'm sorry that they
hurt the United States”? Still I suppose Manning was tortured. The barman at Nelsons Free House is hardly likely to sell his worldly goods, shack-up with some hairy arm-pitted hippy chick at an anarcho commune out the back of Motueka after listening to a Rovics concert.
Spookily Rovics actually believes he is a threat to 'the system' and
people are out to silence him.
Another example of paranoia, what is going on in this guys head.
He's started to believe his own rhetoric! Say bat-shit-stupid conspiracies that the U.S Government was behind 9/11 then weaving them in with German politics in the late 30's.
Mean-while back on planet Earth.
Attn Mr Rovics: The reason you get banned and searched at airports is you
are unprofessional, you don’t do your homework before embarking on a world tour
and write about your use of recreational drugs on a blog which any Customs
official around the globe can gleefully read about and alert their global
border partners.
The Immigration Department of New Zealand did the country a
favour banning David ‘Blowing in the Wind’ Rovics.
It stopped the possibility of him breading in this country.
For ulterior reasons I ended-up
on the Pledge Me ‘crowd funding’ site.
Amongst the “please give me” pages
I then stumbled on-to one from the local band Von Voin Strum.
Bands and charity have always
equated to the same thing in New Zealand, just ask any musician.
VVS were chasing $4000 from their
fan base to record an album and assist tour-costs to Australia.
So how did they get on?
Well in short time they
reached the total with a few incentives like exclusive copies of the release,
t-shirts and even drum lessons.
The average ‘give’ was $80.
Intrigued I searched further
amongst the musical genre and came across one from Proud Scum of all bands.
Proud Scum were after $2000
to get the songs they played at the AK79 reunion concert, I was at,
immortalised on to CD.
Pleasingly they too were successful
in reaching their goal thanks to 21 pledgers.
Also amongst the other Pledge
Me success stories were Dunedin bands TLA and Black Sky Hustler who are heading
around the South Island thanks to a grand from fans.
Seventy per cent of the
musical projects on Pledge Me meet with success, far higher than I thought
would be the case.
The Wellington International
Ukulele Orchestra raised a not inconsiderable $9K for their trip to Scotland,
yes Scotland.
The 176 pledgers for Daniel
McBride’s solo project Sheep, Dog & Wolf came up with $8k to send the teen
to Germany.
Girl on Girl Action, Astro
Empire, Phantom Empire ,Mangle and Gruff
etc attracted monies to record albums.
Christchurch band Ashei left
tax-payers untarnished by getting $1,700 from supporters for their video.
It’s refreshing seeing so
many local bands getting support from their fans, families, friend from the pub,
work mates etc.
Given its anecdotal success I’m
confident more bands will employ this funding avenue.
A Dead Forest Index are a couple of ex-pat Kiwi bros who have moved
off shore to Melbourne, been there for three odd years.
You can buy stuff off their Bandcamp site in Australian Dollars,
see in their web presence they are comfortable announcing to the world they are
a Melbourne band these-days.
But it goes further than mere pedantics on a single web
site.
The Australian Bigpop Studios is plugging on their web site “Engineer/Producer
Simon Gooding was in last week finishing touches on the upcoming album for
Melbourne band, A Dead Forest Index.”
DFI’s record company (Denovali) bio doesn’t mention a word
about their N.Z origins.
It’s Melbourne that crops up again.
Further when they toured N.Z last year or so ago DFI were touted as a
band from MEB AUS.
Similarly DFI were promoted (top of page and below) as Australian when they toured
Europe last year.
Minimalist retro rock from Australia to be exact.
Adam & Sam Sherry, who incidentally formed the band in London,
clearly don’t have an issue being dubbed Australian – when suits their cause.
Except for recently.
When it comes to getting a grant to make
a video (N.Z on Air Making Tracks, July 2012 Funding)
Then they are happy changing tack,
reverting back to being Kiwi’s.
Sure guys, it was all a horrible typo, promoter blunder being
called Aussies all the time when you are so clearly Kiwis.
Those dummkopft menschen in Munich and Vienna can't tell the difference between "Keeping N.Z Music on Air" and "Keeping Aussie Music on Air" anyway eh?
Oi! Oi! Oi!
This is again another case of lax vetting and 'open' criteria by
NZOA.
The fact still remains the N.Z Taxpayers paying for a video
for a band that flew the Australian flag on their European and 'to rub salt into the wound' even the New Zealand
tour!
The only bands that should get N.Z Taxpayer funding are
those that advertise themselves as New Zealanders.
Jess Harlen is a New Zealand born soul vocalist who now
lives overseas, Boston being a long way from Ngapuhi and Ngati Porou territory.
Harlen forms one third of Cocoa Jackson Lane who if google
is correct have never performed in New Zealand.
On her site Harlen proudly displays the accolades of
Australian magazine 3D.
“Jess Harlen is steeping into the spotlight and AUSTRALIAN
MUSIC is richer for it”
The capitisation of Australian Music was their call and not
mine.
Cocoa Jackson Lane is a street in Melbourne.
Her fellow group members are Camilla Charlesworth and Meritxell
Vinaixa.
Vinaixa is Spanish and Charlesworth is Australian.
So to get the make-up of Cocoa Jackson Lane straight - not one in this group lives in New Zealand.
Two of them may possibly have never even visited our shores.
Harlen their song-writer was born here but has since moved
off-shore for education, doesn’t mind putting the Aussie flag up the mast when
it suits record sales.
Their only video on You Tube, studio work was made in Massachusetts,
not Masterton.
So why is the N.Z Taxpayer giving this band money? (N.Z on Air
Making Tracks decisions July 2013)
Does the fact you simply have a N.Z passport qualify you as ‘Keeping
N.Z on The Air’ when you & your band spend the vast majority of your lives
overseas?
When two thirds of the band couldn’t hum the N.Z anthem?
Can bands throughout the world with N.Z passport holders also
similarly qualify for Making Tracks funding based on the loose criteria of
having a Kiwi in their midst?
If you shifted to Australia as a toddler would the Making
Tracks committee still consider you a New Zealander or is it only if you have Maori
heritage?
Surely playing the local circuit is a right-of-passage for
any band wanting tax-payer money?
I for one would like to see the criteria tightened up.
Going straight for the jugular perhaps the easy answer is:
because Christchurch crowds are too ‘fickle’ (the pc word for ‘shit’)?
Worse than Dunedin, come on?
Now one of the benefits of me having a messy desk is the ability
to dredge up old copies of the Groove Guide, Penthouse mags from the 80’s etc.
I found 4 of them, Groove mags as opposed to Penthouse of which
I only discovered 2, from this year and decided I would do a completely unscientific
study as to what percentage of N.Z bands graced Christchurch on their N.Z
Tours.
Auckland punters got all but 100% of the bands.
Wellington just over half at 60%.
Christchurch was 40% and Dunedin not far behind at 35%.
Rider: I did fail School Cert maths.
So Christchurch is definitely no longer seen as a must-do ‘destination’
for N.Z bands doing the traps.
Perhaps it never was, but traditionally it was always one
tare above Dunedin gig wise.
Increasingly bands today are opting for Dunedin, Unknown
Mortal Orchestra springs to mind, over Christchurch.
Bands are signalling N.Z Tours that is better framed as
North Island Tours.
This death spiral trend (less crowds mean less visits, means
less venues willing to have bands versus a local DJ) is replicated with
overseas bands.
I spotted in the latest Gig Guide that The Hard Ons aren’t making
the trip across the ferry, picked New Plymouth over Christchurch and the
Japandroids are appearing in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin, no Christchurch.
Just an hour ago via the Cheese On Toast Facebook link a
band I’m getting into, The Drones are crossing the ditch. Peoples of Wellington
and Auckland will no doubt enjoy them whilst I can but look on in envy.
This is all a sad indictment of Christchurch music-fans
malaise, people here have no one else to blame but themselves.
The post-earth-quake stupor continues to see people of all varieties
sitting-in front of televisions and computers wasting their lives away.
There is an old saying that is apt here: Once the rot sets
in.
The shoegazing sound is typified by significant use of
guitar effects, and indistinguishable vocal melodies that blend into the
creative noise of the guitars.
Common musical elements of shoegazing consist of distortion,
droning riffs and a "wall of sound" from noisy guitars. Typically,
two distorted rhythm guitars are played together to give an amorphous quality
to the sound. Although lead guitar riffs were often present, they were not the
central focus of most shoegazing songs. [Wikipedia]
The other night I was at a gig, the two bands were a blur as
was their music and shall remain nameless, least I up-set the guilty.
I wasn’t even that pissed, which is rather unusual.
Both guitarists, I caught the end of band A and start of
band B, possessed enough effects boxes of varying descriptions to make The Edge
jealous.
One had his rigs ‘nailed’ to a board, side by side for ease
of use and to move from A to B.
At $500 a throw there was a small fortune of technology on
display, playing through amps high on reverb.
And what does a small fortune of effects boxes get you over
same a single ‘fuzz box’ unit?
Say a better sound for the audience?
What say a discernible difference between the varying
devices?
Perhaps a significant marketable differential for the band
in question?
Well no.
It was a wall of reverby, wahy guitar sound punctuated by a
wailing bass-line.
Not to be outdone the bass players having plugged in their
respective instruments into an effects box of some persuasion.
The overall sound was filtered into homeopathic percentages.
Don’t ask me to tell actually what any of the songs were
about.
It was too loud to tell, people looked like stunned mullets,
a super 8 movie of 1950’s LSD experiments.
After less than an hour it actually got annoying as each
song drifted seamlessly into the next like a grunge version of a Yes album.
So I departed.
My cranium stopped reverberating two days later.
To be fair the bar sold ear-plugs and there’s a message in
that.
Footnote: I wrote this sometime last year, it got buried and
dug-up.
