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