The Big Day Out Kills The Wellington Sevens

Contrast….

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 (15^th and 16^th 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’.        

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.          

  

When is a New Zealand Tour not a Tour?

There's one thing that get's my goat-up more than a band just stopping in Auckland. 

 

That's media coverage emblazoned with childlike anticipation that Band X is making a 'New Zealand Tour. '

The Music/Popular Press haven’t seemed to grasp the geography of the two islands.   

I can currently get a return ticket Christchurch-Sydney for $299. 

That’s just $75 more than the corresponding airfare Christchurch to Auckland.   

So as far as I’m concerned announcing an Auckland only gig has the same relevance as one in Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney.

It’s nothing to travel the 2 hours extra to Sydney, perhaps a few extra dollars in cab fares.  

 

I still access the tickets on-line regardless of venue.  

What I’m getting at here is the Auckland-Centric reporting.  

Could you image a band that opted for a sole gig at Dunedin’s new stadium heralded as undertaking a ‘New Zealand Tour’?  

I don’t think so. 

So music journo’s stop reporting Auckland gigs as New Zealand Tour(s)   

A tour is where a band travels further than 20kms outside the airport of arrival.   

 

 

 

  

The Delusional World of David Rovics

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.   

Creating more loony hippy balladeers.

Where's Cartman when you need him?   

PS: The CIA paid me to write this.

    

Couple of Christchurch Band Videos aching for your attention

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.