Hard News by Russell Brown

Another one. Down in the basement at Whammy market. Fiona bought the lightning board – $15! – and I bought a small book of erotic poems.

Great pics Russell ... and since you appear to not be dead they can't have been Cybermen ... unless ...

Great pics Russell … and since you appear to not be dead they can’t have been Cybermen … unless …

Ha ha. I did enjoy our Twitter conversation on this issue last night :-)

K Road is great but it will never be Cuba Street....

K Road is great but it will never be Cuba Street....

This is most certainly true. They're spelt entirely differently to begin with ...

A shrine to departed icons in St Kevins Arcade.

The Into the Void fan club?

K Road is great but it will never be Cuba Street….

It doesn't want to be :-)

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I'd just like to say that it is snowing in Chchch...

It doesn’t want to be :-)

And nor does Colombo St, well that stretch in Sydenham, which (as Ian flagged last week) co-hosted ‘our’ First Thursdays last evening.

The snow held off and it was an evening of conviviality though nowhere near the edginess of K Road. Didn’t stick around for long, scurrying off to before the Morris Dancers came on stage to the Darkroom where it was the re-launch of the ‘neo’ Auricle ‘Wine and Sound’ bar – and the opening night of Malcolm Riddoch’s On The Constant Dissolution of The Same.

The Same? Dissolved into..the Chills – it was a bloody cold night both outside and inside!

Further to above, I didn't realise the Auricle re-opening was on until late in the piece. The newly opened-Auricle has relocated from New Regent Street to St Asaph St, conveniently placed between the Darkroom and Galaxy Records (it's the old Darkroom Gallery space).

Roy Montgomery didn't so much 'play' but he gave an excellent overview of how he moved from a 4-track tape based recorder to a fancier 8-track digital recorder to produce the sounds for his upcoming 4x album opus. Fascinating for the small audience present.

The wonderfully named Teen Haters then played a 25-minute sonic noise set (one continuous track) - cello and feeding back guitar – to round out the night. Another Canterbury Society of Sonic Artists event.

My Goodness...William Dart...wow...

....back in time, it was compulsory listening, those reviews were beautiful. I remember several of them to this day...I carry them around with me, at all times- even now. William Dart, a person who added brilliance to my appreciation of music, a depth a breadth, a person who sent me on an exploration of various artists catalogues. Radio is such a Hot Medium.

Take for example, Williams review of Swamp Ophelia by the Indigo Girls...sent shivers down my spine. I hope there are recordings of those reviews some place, because they were bloody good. I made an Amazon account back then, because I couldn't find that CD in a shop, and it arrived in the mail, its probably in my top 5 of all time. Recently I introduced my daughter to the Indigo Girls and that was cool.

Dead mans hill...I remember...

anyway, there were great reviews, Kate and Anna McGarragle, Ben Folds Five, Randy Newman...I found my self purchasing back catalogues. I suppose William was a catalyst. Then I found Alt Country...Amazon started sending me recommendations...things went vic chesnutt and vic williams for a while...I did get to meet Vic Chesnutt at the Harbor Light...it was distressing only moths later he passed.

And then at some point some idiot programmer...changed the program time...it was no longer 7pm...but 2pm in the afternoon on frydey...repeated at 3 am on Sunday morning...why did they do that?...William was audio gold...found on concert FM...why did they do that?

I am so pleased William still walks the earth, thanks Russell for the article...it sent shivers down my spine...and momentarily I wondered what the hell I had been doing all these years.

William Dart...a national treasure, a sonic smith!

Nice article Russell.

PEACE

...and the Rob Wasserman review

it has a Brian Wilson track

Fantasy is Reality

apparently Bob has passed as well...

New Horizons...essential radio