Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Friday Music: Roger writes the hits

Venetia King

Sun, 19 Jun 2016 17:32:55 +1200

Cheers for the link to the Anna Coddington/Dick Johnson collaboration. Maybe you missed this a few years back? Such fun, catchy as:
https://soundcloud.com/streetneighbourz/noise-control-dick-johnson

Russell Brown

Fri, 17 Jun 2016 15:47:17 +1200

A nice story on Roger and his book by Kiran Dass, for tomorrow’s Your Weekend.

And the illustration page looks fab.

Ian Dalziel

Thu, 16 Jun 2016 09:28:47 +1200

In Love With These Times
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dENP-tHi3R8
Here’s a wee round up of a few other reviewers who managed to see past themselves regarding Roger’s memoir…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/81046626/flying-nun-founder-roger-shepherd-releases-book

http://didnotchart.blogspot.co.nz/2016/06/in-love-with-these-times-by-roger.html

http://www.elsewhere.co.nz/writingelsewhere/7500/in-love-with-these-times-by-roger-shepherd/

http://m.nzherald.co.nz/music/news/article.cfm?c_id=264&objectid=11648664

http://www.nzmusician.com/2016/06/08/roger-shepherd-autobiography/

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30304520-in-love-with-these-times

some media interviews:
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/andrew-dickens-sunday-cafe/audio/roger-shepherd-in-love-with-these-times/

http://95bfm.com/assets/sm/upload/7h/30/ta/9l/loose%20reads.mp3

and some earlier overviews on Flying Nun worthy of mention:
http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/in-love-with-those-times-flying-nun-and-the-dunedin-sound.htm

http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-releases/flying-nun-the-untold-story-of-a-trailblazing-indie-label/

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/flyingnunrecords/library

and…

clinical wasteman

Thu, 16 Jun 2016 06:33:53 +1200

Yes, Jansen guitars and amps! (And not to forget the glorious Holden spring reverb). Somehow my sickly Jansen combo amp made enough noise for Albino Slug/early SPUD c.1987-9, and to this day I cherish and use the 100% scar tissue-covered Jansen Invader guitar given to me by the late and…

Russell C

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 20:35:14 +1200

Saw that Gary Steel item, it is a particularly vile and mean spirited article. I could not describe it as a review of the book because clearly it is not. Sad and tone-deaf.

Russell Brown

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 16:46:24 +1200

A nice little blog post (with pics) from Unity Books on the Wellington launch of Roger's book.

Russell Brown

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 13:41:54 +1200

Actually Gary there is a fine explanation given – you must have just skim read the book with your blinkers on tightly…

To quote: “I was having so much fun I only ventured out of the sanctuary of the backstage area once,” to see a bit of Simple Minds.

I…

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 10:41:39 +1200

Not being able to sign in to comment on Spin off (can't remember passwords for various options) I'll post this here:
"There’s also the quite bizarre admission that he spent an entire weekend drinking backstage at the Sweetwaters festival without seeing any of the bands, without any explanation"
Actually…

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 10:06:02 +1200

Hopefully now that Simon Grigg has control of the Rip It Up archive someday all these tales will be in a searchable database much like the wonderful Papers Past
Then we can all really have some fun...
Mother of 3, Grey Lynn

Joe Wylie

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 09:42:21 +1200

The past eh?
You're damned if ya go there and damned if ya don't...

Perhaps the dearth of decent Toy Love reviews back in the day illustrates how little such things really mattered to a band's career. One I do recall was the Wellington 'reviewer' who lifted whole chunks from…

Ian Dalziel

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 08:38:17 +1200

The one of a Maidment gig...?
I think it was at The Terminus, in Wellington (and for The Dominion maybe)...
http://www.audioculture.co.nz/scenes/wellington-alternative-music-venues-1978-82
I know it was crowded – a big part of Mr Steel's gripe as I recall, there may have even been a toothache involved... heck it might've even been…

Joe Wylie

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 22:39:02 +1200

Reminds me a bit of his Toy Love non-review back in 'the day', which was largely about what a bad night he was having –

The one of a Maidment gig, where Chris was described as a Reginald Perrin lookalike? Memorable mostly because Toy Love reviews were rather thin on…

Ian Dalziel

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 22:14:15 +1200

WTF – why would Gary Steel expect a book about Roger's recollections of Flying Nun to be about stuff that wasn't?
Still he got to mention wellington's jewel in the crown, Jayrem – surprised the Wellington (Four Stars) compilation record (Sausage Records) never got a (deserved) plug, or did…

Sacha

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 20:02:10 +1200

That article sounds a tad bitter, Gary. Love some of the other musicians you mention, but how did your own record company go?

Gary Steel

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 19:06:58 +1200

Don't worry Russell, these days "Mellow" is my middle name. Or is that "Merlot". Come to that, I prefer "Pinot". But anyway, I like you too.

Russell Brown

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 12:51:04 +1200

Sigh. Gary Steel has written an updated (and toned-down) version of his perennial complaint about Flying Nun as a review of Roger's book. See: Flying Nun: In love with the sound of their own voice, more like

I don't really want to take it apart in detail, because I like…

Hebe

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 17:21:25 +1200

PEP schemes

Ferrymead had its own version of art.

Shaun Scott

Sun, 12 Jun 2016 11:42:46 +1200

With a major hat tip to Andrew Long on Twitter, Post-Punk.com just posted the video for Tomorrow Came Today by The Cakekitchen.

this sent me on a wee Cake Kitchen on youtube last night- a pleasant way to spend an evening.

I also recently bought the recently released [[https://thecakekitchen.bandcamp.com/album/red-ep-winter-of-discontent| Winter…

Joe Wylie

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 22:05:38 +1200

One of the few cultural legacies of PEP schemes is one of Owen Marshall's more satisfyingly quirky short stories, The Frozen Continents, about a differently abled character encountered on a work scheme that involved dismantling an Antarctic exhibit at a Dunedin museum.

On his 1983 visit to Auckland David Bowie…

Rob Stowell

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 15:28:09 +1200

Not that I know of – though I seem to remember some art projects. PEP schemes were likely to involve some other odd project. (I worked on a social survey for the UC social work unit, and a lands and survey job taking levels between Amberley and the Lewis Pass…

Joe Wylie

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 12:51:21 +1200

It feels a tiny bit ironic now. Much of the music was effectively subsidised by the (relatively) generous and easy dole (or a job scheme that paid a union negotiated wage.)

Those Muldoon-era PEP schemes paid participants a union-backed minimum wage, though the only one I recall that directly fostered…

Craig Ranapia

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 11:01:53 +1200

It was going to be the Flying Nun book, the definitive history of the label and its music. That would have been madness. People at the centre of cultural history are rarely the right people to thoroughly document it as history. Apart from anything else, they’re quite rightly not all…

Rob Stowell

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 10:20:55 +1200

Great doco – watched it last night right through without quite meaning to. And there’s a definite parallel with Muldoon here. Mostly the FN bands didn’t write overtly political songs. But there was a deep shared sense of being anti-Muldoon – him personally, his government, and the mind-set it stood…

JacksonP

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 08:44:34 +1200

With a major hat tip to Andrew Long on Twitter, Post-Punk.com just posted the video for Tomorrow Came Today by The Cakekitchen.

Happy Saturday!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUg6FE8lA_I

Ian Dalziel

Sat, 11 Jun 2016 06:08:38 +1200

Beknighted?
Sir Job’s Brisbane is inseparable from any cultural understanding of the Saints.
Indeed, Job is virtually a saint himself (at least an Abrahamic prophet), and would have undoubtedly suffered (and survived) through Joh, the Devil from Dannevirke's crushing rule...
;- )

Russell Brown

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 21:22:02 +1200

Right in the middle of Sir Joh’s iron rule of Queensland, no less. He probably would have seen them as “dangerous hooligans”.

Sir Job's Brisbane is inseparable from any cultural understanding of the Saints. This documentary is fascinating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahGtmcL7dTQ

Russell Brown

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 21:18:33 +1200

n Love With These Times is a perfect Flying Nun artefact – the publishers managed to misspell Straitjacket Fits on the back cover blurb (Muppets!) so there is an inserted erratum (and apology) sheet in each book – I chuckled loudly at that.

The apology makes a handy bookmark though.…

Ian Dalziel

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 19:56:44 +1200

In Love With These Times is a perfect Flying Nun artefact – the publishers managed to misspell Straitjacket Fits on the back cover blurb (Muppets!) so there is an inserted erratum (and apology) sheet in each book – I chuckled loudly at that.

“Shared a caravan at Sweetwaters that time.”…

Kumara Republic

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 19:55:01 +1200

Right in the middle of Sir Joh's iron rule of Queensland, no less. He probably would have seen them as "dangerous hooligans".

Russell Brown

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 18:25:46 +1200

Just discovered that Sunday marks 40 years to the day since the Saints recorded '(I'm) Stranded'. Well alright!

https://youtu.be/64kAK0CZjdk

Russell Brown

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 17:23:56 +1200

Self-deprecating one page; full-on record-shop-geek opinionated the next.

Yeah, exactly. And the music-geek stuff is more striking as a consequence.

Rob Stowell

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 17:17:46 +1200

I’m really enjoying ’In Love with these Times” too. It’s a bit stubbornly sideways about stuff – which is perfect. Self-deprecating one page; full-on record-shop-geek opinionated the next. It’s far better for not trying to be encyclopedic. It’s a personal memoir, and you get a real sense of the man:…

Russell Brown

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 17:05:53 +1200

Whoops – missed this. Fly My Pretties, recorded and filmed live at The Isaac Theatre Royal on February 12th, 2016. From the forthcoming Live at The Isaac Theatre Royal EP.

Lead vocals by Bailey Wiley (the song is from her S.O.M.M. EP, backing vocals from Ria Hall, Anna Coddington and…

Public Address

Fri, 10 Jun 2016 17:05:52 +1200

Discussion from blog post.