Posts by Simon Grigg
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I wholeheartedly agree - but as Andrew Dubber and many others would testify, CD is not the right medium for this. .
Actually I don't really agree with that. Pop aside, the celebrity playlists online are largely seen as a failure on the likes of iTunes. A box, such as the FN box is bought for the experience of the package as much as anything. I'm willing to bet that by and large the FN box sets that were sold over Xmas have had one or maybe two plays, but were bought because of what they represent, and it's impossible to replicate that package online right now.
The CD is going the way of the dodo in pop, of that there is no doubt, but there are still places where it won't die, and one of those is collector, or thematic, compiling where the package is as important as the music (even more so sometimes....a notated, nicely packaged 2CD set of FN's Dunedin era is far more likely to sell than a CD entitled Flying Nun Vol1, with the same music on it, or the same tracks on iTunes / eMusic with downloadable notes and images).
The much discussed long tail is a funny one, I think the figure is something like 2% of music on iTunes accounts for 98% of the sales...I simply can't see the likes of the Pin Group having legs online, perhaps selling a few dozen although it should be available. But put it on a Box set and it sells 2000......
The CD will wither, but not die, and this is one area where it will live on.
Ironically I was halfway thru a blog post on this very subject...
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And neither is any website.
As a producer of some of the niche content you are talking about I understand where you are coming from, but taking it one step further, it's not compulsory to produce such.
I actually don't object to advertising on niche sites, but the adblocker is, for me, essential to block the overwhelmingly corporate advertising I don't want to be bombarded with...and its hard to draw a line (or tweak for every site), hence my unanswered question about blocking pop-ups..if PA decided that such was desirable, as many niche sites do, do you think I should open my browser to those too?
I would imagine too that if the option to block sites from those that use ad blocker software was widely implemented (I thought it was already available) then most of the current users of a site such as this would have trouble accessing it, or many other sites....I know very few web savvy people who don't use it. It would be largely self defeating surely....
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Bragging about this to a content producer is a bit like bragging about stealing their lunch. If everyone used ad blockers there wouldn't be much of an internet worth viewing. Something to think about.
C'mon James, surely you flick channels during the ads, or hit the mute. Even Salon's view before reading model allows one to look at another tab while the page rolls through the BMW ad out of view, to the story you want. I rarely look at magazine advertising, never at newspaper advertsing, I consciously block it.
Advertising is not, yet anyway, compulsory viewing.
I have a pop-up blocker too btw....how does that relate to your lunch?
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PS: You made me think of Deep Swing's 'Takin' Me Higher', from one of those albums. That has one of my all-time favourite breakdowns and you're right: the bass part where it comes back in sounds fucking gorgeous.
Some of those tracks on the N'n'U albums (and indeed on our Room Service series) sounded better than the originals, simply because of Rick, who was the unhailed crucial element...especially when you consider all of the N'n'U albums came from overplayed bits of vinyl. Deep Swing was an example....Bevan's copy was, to turn a phrase, utterly rooted, and we used my slightly, but not much, better, copy. Despite that, Rick managed to make it sound fuller and warmer than either copy. The best version of that track you'll find anywhere exists on that album.
Mint Chicks...I'm not sure of their contract but I suspct they are simply licensed to Warners here, and in Oz..hence the freedom to non-DRM the tracks elsewhere.
A couple of other things...I'm very suspicious of the $90 claim for manufacturing costs on the FN Box set..if so, they were royally screwed by someone...5 CDs with booklets is about $15 to manufacture, the box..well, and the mastering fee is a flat one off charge. They were able to offer copies to musicians etc at about $70 as I recall, which is I suspect, their wholesale cost, which includes a margin.
And one also has to call into question that a Box set marketed as a strictly limited edition then finds it's way onto other territories' release sheets, and formats as such. I know of several folk in Australia and the UK who bought the Box set online from NZ on that understanding. Then again, such is the way of the majors...
What I would truly like to see from the Flying Nun catalogue is some inventive, smart compiling. Thematic releases...for example a smart 2CD look at the early Dunedin era perhaps centered around the Dunedin Double. So many of the acts are linked, there is so much that could be done. And personal selections....a Russell Brown selection, or a Simon Woods selection, or a Shayne Carter FN Back to Mine type album, or Dylan Pellett... 20th anniversary editions of selected albums. These sorts of things seem so bloody obvious..why is no-one doing it.
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ad? what ad?
oh yeah. firefox adblock. niiice.
and re: loudness. on the local music front: the feelers are loud. (and crap.)
I was thinking the same thing James, I've yet to see an ad on PA..until I checked the Adblock log....
CD compression is simply lazy. It doesn't need to be that way to make a CD sound like it leaps out but doesn't suffocate . ...refer to the work of Rick Huntington, BFM boffin, and the the finest pair of mastering ears in NZ (or Australia and the equal of anyone anywhere if truth be known). Rick has been mixing and mastering loud CDs that jump out of the speakers without audio exhaustion for close to a decade. His secrets include a little $200 spectrum analyzer box with a wave line drawn on it in felt tip which is religiously adhered. Mastering is not about maximising sounds, which is what it's become, its about definition within a range.
Our secret with the three Nice'n'Urlich albums was the way we mastered. Listen now and they still sound loud, but keeping the warmth of the vinyl and they subtlety of the range were absolutely vital to the success. They push without clipping because the range was maintained. Rick spent days on each one rounding off sounds, emphasizing and, indeed, doing precision editing of each track's final wave. It just takes time (and ears).
Sadly, shrinking budgets, lazy engineers who are simply doing jobs on a production line, and are under instruction simply make it as loud as possible as quickly as possible, are the culprits. That, and the fact that everybody, in these digital studio in a box times, now sees themselves as a mastering engineer.
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What do people reckon they could have sold if the venue was big enough? 50,000?? 80,000???
There was an interestingly thread on another forum I hang out on, a US music industry one, about who, in 60s / 70s /80s terms could be considered contemporary "rock stars" in the traffic stopping Keith Richard sense, and the general consensus was that only the RHCP and Prince (and perhaps Noel Gallagher) would fit the bill..really there are no other contenders.....
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That's so weird. I recall we sort-of crashed a daytime party in Parnell (David Blyth's place?) in 1985 and Shayne got into a big argument with one of Hamilton's friends about the dubious merits of his work. I recall half-heartedly trying to stop Shayne but being quite amused by it. The other thing I recall is being invited back to a lady's place afterwards and it all going quite merrily until her boyfriend came home, and I had to very quietly let myself out. I guess the classic would have been climbing out the window, but it was nine floors up at Brooklyn.
No it would've been 86, Russell (you'll note I was vague about the date). David, I and Sheryl Morris shared the place (I lived there until 1991) and I didn't return to NZ until Sept 85...and it was Regatta day...so 26 Jan 86 I think. Somebody had David Hamilton up against the wall the the corridor telling him he was a "f**king pedophile" , and I didn't think it was actually Shayne but someone else...Max Cryer came complaining to David about the way his guests were being treated before leaving. Then, I guess Hamilton probably has a thick skin about such things...
I don't remember vast swathes of that day, although I have a box of photographs somewhere....and I do vaguely remember your face in one.....maybe.....
I do remember having to coax Scruff down from the roof at some stage....
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Ok, here are three memorable parties, perhaps not for the right reasons...
1977..27 Birdwood Crescent, Parnell. a very early punk party in Ak. Massed fashion victims trying as hard as hell to pretend they were working class unemployed yobs. There were only two records...a copy of God Save The Queen and the only copy of the first Clash album in NZ (imported by the host) which we played over and over again. When some bright spark decided to set fire a mattress under the house. Smoke poured out and the brigade was called. Eventually they managed to fight through the 100 rather mashed dancers, turn the Clash off and ask us to evacuate as they contained the now smoldering bedding.
As we did so the whole party erupted on the street into an unscripted take on The Clash's London's Burning with London being replaced by Parnell. The brigade, the just arrived police and the neighbours were utterly bemused..
Two years later I was now living at the same address with various Suburban Reptiles and the like, when Chris Knox, at the end of an absolutely packed Toy Love night at the Windsor Castle, announced the whole pub was invited to our house for a party. He thought it was funny, yeah sure....so what to do?...have a party I guess.....Team Policing arrived about half an hour into the mayhem but, for some reason cracked a few jokes, pronounced it well behaved (it was hardly that) and left happy despite the wandering trolleyed punks and the odd skinhead. It actually passed without serious incident (someone stole the laundry off the line) but Chris decided it was amusing to do it several more times, which we countered by staying out.
1987 (I think)...Parnell again, this time in our place in Awatea Road on the cliff on Anniversary Day. The Regatta parties, with our view of the harbour had become quite an institution, full of all sorts of interesting people. We usually stripped the house out, put an Oceania PA in and turned the back room into a bar. This was, for some odd reason entitled Sex Without Guilt..Come Alone..and a bottle of Cointreau, Benedictine or Cognac (the ingredients of a Submission) were required to enter. All sorts turned up including Max Cryer with English softcore kiddie photographer David Hamilton in tow. As the Submissions kicked in Shayne Carter (at least I think it was Shayne) decided to have a go at Mr Hamilton, and was joined by a queue of fuelled up Aucklanders who decided to pass their views on Hamilton's "art" and he beat a hasty retreat. Then a girl got stuck in the second floor toilet and no-one was bale to get her out for an hour...and I woke up on the pipeline at 7am.
I don't do that sort of thing anymore.
I'd also like to say that I once talked to Jona Lewie in the kitchen at a party...
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Vista...My understanding is that with both XP and Win 95/98 there was a clear public move to quickly upgrade existing machines which led to the mass surge of the OS after release. This clearly is not happening with Vista...I actually don't know a living soul whose rushed out and bought an upgrade for their existing machine.
New machines, since most people don't buy a new PC every year (or even two), will take a lot longer to penetrate the online users mass
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f your answer to any of these questions is "no" then you may be a New Zealand internet user.
I look enviously at New Zealand and dream some nights of my old connection. I explain to locals here that broadband can be faster than 256 (with a two gig data cap) for about $150 per month.....
Still, the max speed available 12 months ago was 64kbs, shared with 5 others.....and we have free hotspots by the hundred
(I'm actually being a tad hypocritical here as I managed to cajole 512kbs for $80 out of the local company, on the firm condition I told absolutely no-one, but I have to have a gorgeous 40ft wireless antenna behind my house to get it...nice)