Posts by dyan campbell
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Hard News: Friday Fever, in reply to Matt Crawford,
New vinyl release for me this week is David Kilgour’s Left by Soft. Deconstructed CD cover glued into place; hand numbered and signed. He still sounds like the young bloke who did Here Come the Cars.
"Left by Soft" is wonderful. I love the song with the Sam Hunt lyrics - "A Break in the Weather".
I haven't seen the artwork for the vinyl, but the shot of a gymnast (from the 40s or 50s by the look of her bathing suit) in mid-flip on the beach inside the CD is pretty cool... something that manages to combine David Kilgour's music, a sunny beach and impromptu gymnastics is pretty much my idea of the perfect happiness.
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reverting to plain display of the NZ time stamp on the discussion posts? I recall this was raised by several posters in the original thread. An everchanging “3 hours ago”, “3 days ago” etc is so much less informative especially after the first hour, inconvenient for reference, and makes it harder to follow the discussion dynamics especially if reading a thread a little or a long time after real-time.
+ yet another 1
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I like "Down In Splendour"
One of the great strengths of the band was the fact that different songs had greater or lesser merit to different listeners. More formulaic musicians tend to have one or two stand out tracks on an album, and everyone agrees which ones those are.
I always thought the name "Doublehappys" referred to a brand of firecracker that used to be on the market... but I grew up in another country and in an era when people thought that gunpowder and matches were good toys for children... my best friend's Dad had been a munitions expert in WWII in Europe and mine had been a navigator (Lancasters) in the RCAF and we spent much of our childhood reenacting (without all the immense and tedious sums their work entailed) our Dads' war experiences blowing up Barbie dolls, GI Joes and model planes with Doublehappys.
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Late to this, but I am working way too much these days.
The music in New Zealand was the most amazing thing I found when I moved here in 1988. I could not believe the degree of musical competence and sophistication in songwriting... all recorded with tens of dollars. There was a busy music scene back in Vancouver, but on the whole bands here were musically more accomplished and their songwriting more original.
the vocal delivery of 'I Don't Want To See You Again.' All that ducking and diving over, what, 4 chords? Yes. The very best Shayne Carter material, for me at least, is where that remarkable voice is set free with only minimal instrumental supervision. In those situations, if you're paying attention, it's hard not to think: "Wait. This guy might just be one of the best singers New Zealand has ever produced…
Absolutely. One of the things I really noticed about Straitjacket Fits was Shayne's voice - a fine, clear, flawless voice with effortless range - big, strong, sweet. That, and some of the chord progressions were entirely novel, but hugely successful. I wrote an article about SJF for the Listener in 1989 - shortly after coming here from Canada - not that I was much of a writer - and the thing I most wanted to convey in the article was how astonishing Shayne's voice was. Having come from a music scene whose sound was far harder and heavier (NoMeansNo, DOA, Sons of Freedom etc) than anything I'd encountered here, the music seemed incredibly tuneful for how hard they played. And how insane they made a crowd - I once a got a split lip from someone's head when they stage dived, making me feel even older and more timid than I already did. Only the Rolling Stones in their heyday seemed to whip up the same kind of crazy feeling in the crowd. I got their A & R guy at Arista to send some of clips of them playing live as well as their videos to MuchMusic in Canada I was so convinced their live shows were something extraordinary.
The Listener ran a patronising, tepid review of SJF's album right under my article about them, and forever after the band and everyone at FN (unable to see someone else's tiny byline by the review) thought it was my review... which was deeply irritating.
Re “Down in Splendor”. In 1996 I refused a date with a boy after discovering he regarded Andrew Brough to be the better songwriter in the Straitjacket Fits, and considered Bike’s album to be an absolute masterwork.
I do not regret this. It’s a painfully dull song.
Respect. I could never understand the appeal of "Down in Splendor" either - to me it always seemed to drag down the energy when they played it live. I always thought Andrew's song "Fabulous Things" was a better showcase for his style in the context of SJF, but they never played that live.
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Done, and it's a great idea to have this as an annual thing!
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Hard News: Asking for a Contribution, in reply to Simon Bennett,
With pleasure. And what Simon Bennett said.
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I should've gone to Byron Bay festival.
Here's Son Veneno and the glamorous Merenia, burning up the stage there a couple years ago:
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Late as usual, but wanted to say thank you for posting that video of The Adults, I’ve been playing it heaps – wish I could buy the song.
Me too - I love the way there is this suggestion or immense power, but kept under a tight, rhythmic restraint - an gorgeous and tension building loop of a song - the drumming is amazing, Shayne Carter is one of my favourite guitarists and Ladi6 has impressed me hugely ever since I saw her play at one of Russell's Great Blends. Her voice is amazing with the song, because it has that soft, powdery sound that belies huge power, just like the song itself.
It reminds me - not very directly, but in a very tangential way of one of my favourite, favourite tracks by the Allman Brothers Band. When I was a growing up, these guys were my all time favourite, band, but a lot of my friends didn't get them, and preferred The Partridge Family or Led Zepplin.
I saw the Allman Brothers on this tour - in Vancouver - maybe four or five days before this clip was shot:
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed
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It is interesting just how pathetic most of the things we get busted for in NZ are. Last time I watched it, I saw 3 busts before just getting sick of it. One was a poor old guy who changed lanes without leaving enough gap – $300 or so. Another was an old lady with a boot full of wood, that was not secure enough. They fined her a few hundred, and made her catch the bus home, in the middle of the night, somewhere miles from home in the rain. Another was a young Maori guy who wasn’t wearing a seat belt. They took him down to the station and questioned him for ages, a massive long fishing expedition, from which they got zilch, because he had actually done nothing, except not updated his lifetime license to a photo one. Seat belts are for safety, presumably, which is sort of fair enough, except that most of the time they were questioning him at the car, both of them were practically standing on the motorway. He got a big fine too.
After each there was the little bit by the cop about how they’d just prevented some terrible thing from happening. The saddest thing was that they seemed to believe it.
Ben, James K. Baxter explains it all for you in his poem The Maori Jesus. The rest of the poem is there if you want to follow the link...
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Hullo all - sorry for the threadjack, but can anyone out there tell me how (and why?) an incorrect business listing can be put up? Also, does anyone know how to get in touch with Loaded Web? Their reply thing doesn't work on their site. Could some IT genius out there HELP?