Hard News: Rip It Up: A history of us, a history of me
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For everyone else's memories, allow me to recommend The Spinoff's excellent new oral history of Rip It Up.
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What an unexpected pleasure and awesome achievement by all concerned. Back when “cut and paste”, “waxer”, and “lightbox”, all had rather different meanings!
Rip It Up ‘preserved’ confirms all sorts of things if you were lucky enough to have been there at the time.
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Simon has a post on the National Library website with his memories of the time and an explanation of how all this has happened.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
What an unexpected pleasure and awesome achievement by all concerned. Back when “cut and paste”, “waxer”, and “lightbox”, all had rather different meanings!
The smell of the wax comes back to me ...
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Congratulations. New to NZ in 1980 Rip It Up was crucial to my getting to grips with the scene. And as part of my first job I had to edit/design/lay out a technical college monthly paper, printed by the Rodney & Waitemata Times, so I know about the waxer too, as well as reprographic pencils!
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I started with earliest issue I could recall - September 79 and had a browse. I was 12 and had already learned to never mind the bollocks that was music industry journalism but the ads are still gold and trigger lots of great memories.
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Jeez, how's a man meant to get any work done if you keep lobbing this sort of stuff at us! :-)
Well done to all!
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Ah, I’ve just noticed that Murray’s side of the pompous-letter story is in Gareth’s Rip It Up oral history on the Spinoff:
At one point, I received this anonymous letter saying that Rip It Up used to be brave, but had just become an advertising rag for the music industry. It was absolutely beautifully written. Every typewriter was different, so you could identify who’d written a page by how it looked. So then a story appeared six months later and I thought – “I know that typewriter!” Russell was obviously a great writer so I wanted to contact him, especially since I was looking for a sub editor.
From memory the phrase I used in the letter was “paid advertisement for the music industry”. Murray told me later that he figured, “well, better that than an unpaid advertisement.”
Funny thing is, I’m pretty sure I copped that phrase from Roy Montgomery after a conversation one day at the EMI Shop. It’s wild how small things change the course of lives. Would I have got to Rip It Up if I hadn’t gone into the shop one day and had that conversation?
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Speaking of waxing, cutting and pasting — not to mention bromides and dark rooms etc — I pasted up my first issue at Rip It Up as designer … and thereafter had the honour of being the one who dragged RIU into the digital age. Murray was skeptical … but intrigued by the possibility of cost savings, and recognised it was the way things were going … So we got a scanner and Mac, and every issue after that was laid out digitally.
Oral history-wise I could tell (if anyone asked :-) about the day Murray went off to have the company wound up in court … and we sat around the office wondering what next … and Murray arrived back with Barry Coleman, the mag’s new owner, and introduced us all to our new boss! (I left shortly after).
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
The smell of the wax comes back to me …
My flat in RossLyn (with Murray) seemed to have the wax everywhere. It travelled with him it seemed.
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Simon Grigg, in reply to
Oral history-wise I could tell
The big story missing from the early years' oral history is the deadline story. MC would go into a mad frenzy for at least a week a) trying to finish the magazine, and b) trying to find the money to get it printed, or sweet-talk a printer into giving credit. Murray went through a number of printers and some were more patient than others - some (the Christian lot) would also censor the swear words.
Finding the money was a full-time job that often ended with a friendly record company boss - CBS, Festival, Virgin and WEA were very supportive - agreeing to book and pay for ads for the future issues. The indie labels and bands, who all advertised, had no money after all. (Murray gave away a lot of free space to the people that made the music - also designing ads for them for free.)
The mag would be finished after days of no sleep and then MC and a staff (there was only one for a while) would immediately drive it to a printer often in the Waikato or north. He'd then come back to the flat and disappear into the bathroom and the bath for up to 36 hours with magazines and our only phone. I would have to explain to visitors and my girlfriend that we had to use the loo next door (we had great neighbours).
After 24/36 hours MC would reappear and get in the van to drive to the printers and return with the new Rip It Up. This was repeated the next month. And the month after ...
That he did this is part of the reason RIU is so important.
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Kudos to Cammick and all the elves that made RIU happen. It was such good reading (most of the time) even when I didn't agree with the reviews.
And more kudos to Simon for getting hold of it and letting go again, into the national memory. Well done, that man!
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Trying all the links at different places I get this.
This site can’t be reached paperspast.natlib.govt.nz’s server IP address could not be found.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
This site can’t be reached paperspast.natlib.govt.nz’s server IP address could not be found.
Not just you.
It may be that their servers weren't quite ready for this.
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I love that Murray remembered your formatting and the imprint of your typewriter.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
The big story missing from the early years’ oral history is the deadline story. MC would go into a mad frenzy for at least a week a) trying to finish the magazine,
The other part there, from a staff point of view, is that Murray felt that food was extremely important on deadline and we'd down tools and go eat. It was usually Wun Loy, up on Hobson St, or the Mekong on Wellesley St, on the other side of the block the RIU building was in. Crucial part of deadline.
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Sacha, in reply to
Fortunately their servers were ready.
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Murray felt that food was extremely important on deadline and we'd down tools and go eat.
In my day it was Shahi Indian on Jervois Rd. Murray didn't have to say what his order was he'd say "Hello, Murray here ... 15 mins? OK, thanks."
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God I remember getting a job at The Listener by writing a pompous letter. Embarrassing really. Why do they never tell you to do that at school careers evenings?
The other part there, from a staff point of view, is that Murray felt that food was extremely important on deadline and we’d down tools and go eat. It was usually Wun Loy, up on Hobson St, or the Mekong on Wellesley St, on the other side of the block the RIU building was in. Crucial part of deadline.
Food is essential to any fringe creative endeavour that can't afford to pay people properly. Nothing's more bonding than a late night dash to a quality dodgy restaurant. You'll do anything for people that feed you.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
In my day it was Shahi Indian on Jervois Rd. Murray didn’t have to say what his order was he’d say “Hello, Murray here … 15 mins? OK, thanks.”
I now feel I need to know what his standing order was.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Food is essential to any fringe creative endeavour that can’t afford to pay people properly. Nothing’s more bonding than a late night dash to a quality dodgy restaurant. You’ll do anything for people that feed you.
Testify. I put a ton of time into a big British Council event years ago, none of it paid. It certainly wasn't a case of lack of funds, just their usual practice. But good lord they fed and watered me well, so I was happy enough.
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When did the typewriters switch to computers? Given how expensive computers would have been in those days, the switch would probably have come quite late in the game.
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linger, in reply to
Seems roughly commensurate, actually. NZ newsrooms mostly switched to computer layout during the mid-1980s. (Allan Bell was able to carry out studies of the process of news editing in 1984, based on physical drafts, that by 1988 had become impossible to replicate.)
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Murray Cammick and Chris Bourke natter with Kim Hill (53m clip).
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
It’s wild how small things change the course of lives. Would I have got to Rip It Up if I hadn’t gone into the shop one day and had that conversation?
You should option that movie idea
- working title?
'Roy Division'
- of course!;- )
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