forgot to add...

I have a cassette of the 1983 Hillsborough Tavern show.........it's with me here in the UK...I will send it to you if you can get it put on a CD and do a copy for me also......I will check the quality....have not played it for 20-plus years.....

Hey Russell....John Cale will be WELLl worth seeing. Trust me.

I caught him here in Glasgow just 8 months ago, a few weeks before my trip to NZ, and it was the first time I had seen him for 20 years.

He played to a half-full ABC (former cinema) on Sauchiehall Street with a back-up band of three far younger hipsters.

The newer stuff was teriffic, and the old 70s classics were performed respectfully with his typical retouches to keep them fresh for him, at least.

Damn good show. And he was courteous and in good humour.

Unlike in the mid 1980s. I sympathise with your personal experience of him. I did a phone interview for The Press before his NZ tour and he was brusque but forthcoming....

...but later during my time on the NME i met a rock hackette who had, uh, entertained him intimately and she did not have very nice words for him as a person. Hell, can you trust a anyone who did not want to hear The Clean in 1983?

I still remember his Hillsborough Tavern show in Christchurch that year....that was absolutely outstanding... and as you well recall the fact that a real-life Velvet was in our city was kinda stunning. I do believe there were 800 people there that night, it was a sell-out.

A subsequent sighting, like yourself, in London during a Ronnie Scott's mini-season in 1986 was not quite as riveting though still good. Maybe it just didn't feel as special. (I call it the ''Ramones 1980 tour'' syndrome)

But I think you will be mighty impressed with the Welshman this time round.

Read these reviews....this is the first Cale album I have bought since 1982's Music For A New Society............and it's teriffic:

http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists/calejohn/hobosapiens?q=cale

The follow-up, 2005's Black Acetate, is not quite as good.

Enjoy the show anyway and regards

Dave Swift

just caught up with this thread after getting back to the UK after five weeks at home in NZ in Feb/March

Saw The Clean's Auckland gig on March 17: first time I had seen them since the In-A-Live recording in London in, uh, 1989 I believe.

Fabulous. New stuff as good as the old. And ''Getting Older'' surely the greatest NZ 45 of the 1980s. Kliller sound quality at that venue. My god, K Road has changed for the better!!

Other rock'n'roll highlights of the trip:

seeing David Kilgour and the Heavy Eights blow away Yo La Tengo in Melbourne;

catching The Terminals at their annual Chch gig for the first time since about 1984 (when they went under different guises)....their garage-punk is for my money fit to stand right up their with Chants R&B, also from the home town

watching The Phoenix Foundation for free at the Oamaru Wine and Cheese Fest in February in the domain. 26deg and fine real ale.

and hearing our own minute contribution to FNun history, ''That's What Friends are For'', played by the erstwhile lead singer of Mainly Spaniards, who is now an English teacher, and three of his pupils. Billed as (arf, arf) Richard James and The Teacher's Pets. First time I have ever heard that performed without sitting behind Richard on the drums. Which was, erk, some 25 years ago.

ahhhh.....good stuff.

nah......Telecom prepaid vouches in Starbucks etc....SORTED.

Thank you NAIS!

re Wi-Fi....... thanks for the public appeal Russell, and the responses, people

I might just bring and Mac and try my luck ha ha ha!

PUBLIC LIBRARIES offer it in Scotland........should I try them too?

Russell

Fantastic and very moving piece about your grandpa.

I am going to have a ''1991 South Island beach moment'' myself very soon.

I understand that feeling totally.

Not been home for ELEVEN YEARS but landing in Chch February 10.

It will be a VERY happy new year for me.

You too I hope. Great forum/s

Dave

Rob Stowell - great post about the British.
Russell - fab Bill Direen story from the rugby!
Ian MacLennan - yeah I still have the stand-up Boodle kit also!

I guess my own memories might appear self-serving for which I apologise, but I am quite proud of the fact that I did the first ever F Nun press article......at the start of 1981.....when a ''rock reporter'' ahem on The Press. Roger showed me the logo (used on the Tally Ho sleeve), which we published...along with a few paragraphs about ''local rock fan intends to release records on his own label''....

Later, in London, I was again chuffed to slip in quite a few 45, LP and gig reviews of (in particular) The Chills and Sneaky Feelings into the NME, where I was on staff 84-87. Even a one-page feature on The Chills.

When freelancing a bit later I don't think my ''9 out of 10'' review for Hard Love Stories helped it shift any copies, sadly. God that was a great record.

In 1982 when drumming for Mainly Spaniards we did two nights with The Clean at the Star and Garter in Christchurch and David, Hamish and Bob insisted we headlined on the Saturday night which seemed ludicrous to us (The Clean were just phenomenal in 81/82). And NO ONE LEFT after The Clean did the first set. There must have been 400 people packed in there each night.

Likewise, drumming with Razorcuts in the UK and us being on the same bill as The Chills and Ed Kuepper at the Boston Arms in London in 1986.....that was thrilling.

I saw all the great Christchurch gigs 1979-1983. So many gems. Toy Love and The Swingers apart (non-Nun), The Gordons always feature near the top of the memory pile.......as do The Clean.

For an oddball memory, I remember the day that the first Flying Nun 7in single arrived in boxes from the pressing plant. ''Ambivalence'' by The Pin Group. Roy of the band was so disgusted at the pressing quality he vowed never to let it go out on general sale and just permitted a few of us to buy it ha ha ha (how very Roy that was).

Those unopened boxes, if not eBayed, are good as a pension now with all those German and Japanese completists lurking, I expect!

Greetings to all from a soaking wet northern Britain
Dave