$12,000 of Taxpayers Money goes offshore no questions asked.

Liam Finn recorded his 3^rd 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. 

Does that mean I now have to now like Liam Finn?  

Why the hell do we have a U.K based ex All Black on the board of a New Zealand Music Trust?

‘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.   

 

 

         

 

 

MORE 'N.Z ON AIR' FAILS

It’s that time of the month.  

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’s all good on Pledge Me

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.    

 

 

What qualifies as a New Zealand Artist in the eyes of N.Z On Air?

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.  

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?  

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? 


 




   
  
 

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.

   

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.  

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.        

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.

START THAT BLOODY RACKET IN YOUR BEDROOM!

New Zealand and the world as a whole needs more of this sort of shit. 

Punk, piss taking, sing-along shit that is.  

Courtesy of Auckland three piece The Rackets!  

I put the exclamation mark on the end of their name (for journalistic effect)   

Proper rock journos often do that sort of wanky thing to show that are cool - so I'm told.

Getting all technical the name is also singular as in Rackets. 

More of this wholesome goodness at: http://rackets.co.nz/

SIDE KICK NICK OR IS IT SIDEKICKNICK? WHO CARES! IT’S GREAT EITHER-WAY YOU SPELL IT.

Side Kick Nicks debut (only?) album ‘Miscellaneous Adventures’ has been on CD rotation in my car for yonks now, yet to be honest I hadn’t done any homework on Nick, the guy behind one of the best Kiwi albums of the last five years. Seriously if you haven’t got this album you deserve the new series of The X-Factor. So thanks to the wonders of google I was able to do a bit of research which would be selfish not to share. Included is the ultimate in lazy journalism – a You Tube interview (below) Bullet Magazine provided a great interview, excellent morsels, like the project took nine years to write and complete. Music-wise that’s the time stalagmites take to form, but as they say in the cheese advert some-things take longer. His influences included 3D’s and The Beatles when I would have picked Beck and Blur. He hates bands/composers that don’t try and do something different, saying 99% of the stuff we get dished up nowadays is the same-old, same-old. Isn’t that the truth?! SKN is a sideline from Voom a band he’s in. Ironically, perhaps further evidence that N.Z is a one-horse town, I flogged a Voom song in a promo I did for The Naseby Luge (refer below, like my feet?) Oh yeah before I forget He being Nick has a surname. It’s Buckton. You need his album. Play it lots like me and get reminded it exists when you stumble on-to Karen Hay and Andrew Fagan’s evening show on Radio Live. ‘Amputee Acrobat’ is their theme-song, in case you were scratching your head wondering where you had heard it before.  

    

    

Turn-up the Volume!

Got my mits on inaugural copy of the new weekly Kiwi music mag ‘Volume’ the other-day (6^th Sept with Drab Doo Riffs on the cover) If # 1 is anything to go by - what a cracker addition to the Kiwi music scene ‘Volume’ will be. The format harks back to those rustic days of Rip it Up. Nifty articles, fringe cartoons, adverts worthy of inclusion based on artistic merit alone, interviews, the smell of newsprint, album reviews, snippets of wots-up in the main centres, gig guide. All the good stuff, all in a format which means it can be consumed easily with a pint of beer. Coming your way outta Auckland every Tuesday, I thoroughly recommend you seek out ‘Volume’ at your local record shop. Free is also a great price.

For pity’s sake please no more Dave ‘Fucking’ Dobbyn!

Screams in to the southerly wind (for what it is worth): “why is it not possible to hold a music variety show of any kind in this god-damned country, without Dave ‘Fucking’ Dobbyn featuring on the billing?”   

Earthquake Concert, Christchurch Arts Festival, World Rugby Cup Concert etc etc the list is seemingly endless.

Are there any ear-drums in New Zealand safe from this dire middle of the road drivel?

Is Dave Dobbyn ‘Exhibit A’ in prosecutions case that the music business in N.Z is one big daisy chain of mutual masturbation?

Does Dobbyn's popularity signal that middle New Zealand only cares about the welfare of overseas kids?   

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only Kiwi to put my fingers in my ears and hum randomly at the mere prospect of another ghastly rendition of ‘Loyal’?   

On one promo for an up and coming concert Dobbyn was described as being an iconic Kiwi, leading me to propose if idolic/icon worship is in vogue this is one graven image I’m going avoid, even if it does mean bathing in goats blood & listening to death metal non-stop for 7 days. 

High Brough: The Missing/Missed Straitjacket Fits frontman

When Andrew Brough parted company with Straitjacket Fits in 1992 he returned home and formed Bike with Tristan Mason (bass) and Karl Buckley (drums) In a sad travisty of music history N.Z style ‘Take in The Sun’ (1996) replendent in it’s ghastly techni-colour cover, was their only major output. One friggin’ album was it. But what an album. It’s one of those rare records the more I play it the more I like it. Don’t believe what the chirlish critics have to say on this record. What were you expecting a Straitjacket Fits cover band? There was no Lennon/McCathy rivaly, intrigue between Carter and Brough going-on here either. No bones to pick over. Broughs shimmering guitars, magic vocals are best exhibited in his Bike project. This was a guy at the top of his game, on one fine,fine record. ‘Save my Life’ and ‘Keep you in Mine’ are great songs that should be on Kiwi compilations, should such compilations adhere to the novel idea of including the best songs and not the most popular. A year later there were two more Bike singles ‘Welcome to my World’ and ‘Circus Kids’ both of which were on the album anyway. Then nothing. Such a pity that was the last we heard of Mr Brough. I fervently hope the throngs reading this will trapes-out and buy the album, somehow reignite his creative passion. I remember reading somewhere he had ‘retreated from the music scene’ which is is PC term for ‘he’s had a fucking gutsful’. Regardless Andrew Brough’s legacy includes two of the best songs to come-out of New Zealand. Enjoy them below.

Footnote: I’m thinking of putting in my will “play ‘Save My Life’ at my funeral would ya.” Should get them all blubbering with a bit of luck. Morbid bastard eh?

Buy: Bike ‘Take in The Sun’

Sleepy Age Mark 2 is Good

Until today I was never into Sleepy Age from Christchurch, which in case you missed it is where I live. They didn’t really spin my wheels to be honest. Nice guys, great musso’s they just seemed to be too much like a whole heap of other guitar driven bands.

But recently I stumbled onto Sleepy Age again on You Tube, the mark 2 version that’s traipsing around Europe currently. Namely this ‘new romantic’ single (below) that pays tongue-in-cheek homage the gushy eighties stuff from ABC, Spandau Ballet etc.

I mean if the world can get a second dose of glam, endless punk re-makes why not give New Romanticism (is that an actual term?)another day in the sun, the 2nd chance to place “juxtapose” in amongst the lyrics, grow a significant fringe and not be considered an emo? Getting Kiwi blokes to dress better, consistently brush their teeth may be the biggest obstacle for campy synth pop like this taking hold again down here. Berlin, Manchester and Paris seem more fitting places if re-vamped vamp will ever take hold again.    

But as they say on the streets of Sydenham, Burnside and Cashmere “Give it a crack Nigel” and that’s exactly what Sleepy Age are doing.

Mind you Sleepy Age are going to need a way bigger budget to  stand a dogs-show of competing with a benchmark gayfest video like this one for an 'ever-green wedding fav' from the eighties:  

Visit: Sleepy Age Web Site.    

WORLDS MOST UNDERRATED BANDS EXHIBIT B: STRAITJACKET FITS

Apart from the Judd era Split Enz, Straitjacket Fits are my favourite Kiwi band. So  don’t expect any objectivism in my critique. Every time I listen to one of  their records it seems impossible that SJF  didn’t ‘make it big’. Incredulity aside, success and failure in the music industry are not necessarily in anyway related to share-talent. There has never really been a globally successful Kiwi band and if the experience of SJF (1986-94) is anything to go by – it is highly unlikely there ever will be. Becoming inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame is no where as significant as making an impact, heaps of dosh on the global music scene. Geography and lack of motivated multi-national record companies, underpowered locals are seemingly impenetrable barriers for N.Z bands to overcome. So what made Straitjacket Fits such a great band? In two words: their songs. They wrote great guitar-driven songs that complimented the relative strengths of the vocalists and musicians. They clicked, in my humble opinion never produced a bum tune. Sonics melted into Pop in a wonderful amalgam. That’s why you can’t go wrong investing in their music. Melody Maker (4th January 1992) succinctly stated "Straitjacket Fits are the weirdest guitar band in the world. They are also the best." Need I say more?

FuturNari – Chips minus the fish

Don’t ask me to be incisive or the slightest bit in-depth with this one. You have google as well as me! What little I know about this group (not in a literal sense) is they (read: he) is from New Zealand is the medium employed is what is loosely know as ‘chip music’. That’s music made from discarded computers and gameboy consols etc. Being an electronic dunce – don’t ask me how that sort of crap works. Think Space Invaders meets Ibiza nightclub with Brian Eno as DJ. This home produced clip, not to be confused with chip, is worthy of a larger audience – that’s why I’m giving it a plug . So give it a quick play and travel off to Bandcamp for a free-download of the EP it came from (refer below) Free is a good price.

Download for free