But I went for Spector over Wilson as he was doing something special without looking or caring at what anyone else was up to. And his sound was highly individual.

That hothouse of competitiveness in the sixties was something special though, rarely seen since (although things got pretty fierce in…

hate to be a damned trainspotter but that was not on the original album..only on the odd US re-compile.

Really? I presumed it was on there. Must re-check my vinyl copy. I have only listened to it in electronic format in recent times.

Heh, I think Paul is one of the luckiest blokes on the planet to find himself up on stage with George and John and that other George at the controls.

Paul is undeniably a giant cheeseball, and he comes across in person as a fake and a poseur. This is…

There is a bootleg somewhere on a shelf of mine in Auckland with the vocals in the left channel and the (mono) instrumental in the right, so you can do that trick of rotating the vox out of the mix with the balance knob....

Spooky.

About 5 years ago I…

Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur arrives June 12 via Warner Bros.

Instant Karma:

Disc 1:

01 U2 – "Instant Karma"
02 R.E.M. – "#9 Dream"
03 Christina Aguilera – "Mother"
04 Aerosmith – "Give Peace…

Chaos and Creation? 2001's Driving Rain was really something; beautiful, sometimes naff (natch), sprawling and believe it or not, edgy.

...a very very average career (with the odd highlight) since, umm, his second solo one.

…

Complete Control

hate to be a damned trainspotter but that was not on the original album..only on the odd US re-compile.

McCartney....he's a guilty pleasure for me...last year's Chaos and Creation was a minor masterpiece of post middle age pop...Beatlesque and beautifully produced by Radiohead's Nigel Goodrich. His best album…

As for the sound, Machine Gun Etiquette has al..

God, you'd think I'd been drinking. I meant of course, 'Give 'em Enough Rope'

PS. Never could get why you guys love the Clash because they're... y'know... political..., when their aural texture is often awful, but don't like Bob who has the same attributes.

But The Clash's political statement was a pose, fashion. Check out Joe's drunken ramblings on Rudeboy for a glimpse at…

]]> Tue, 01 May 2007 22:22:11 +1200 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-parties-seriousness-and-the-death/?p=15233#post15233 https://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-parties-seriousness-and-the-death/?p=15233#post15233

The Band concert footage is superb ....

Have a read of Levon Helm's autobiography 'This Wheel's on Fire'. Not only does he have a great name but the man is fairly punk rock as well.

though some blame must surely go to Peter for introducing that inflamatory phrase, "the Dylan problem". (One day someone will study, and perhaps even map, the trends in changes of direction of comments threads. C'est la vie.)

Oh guilty as charged. But then I think that all people should talk…

Brilliant, follows a failed (financially) music festival tour by train across Canada with some fantastic off and on-stage footage of Janis, The Band, Grateful Dead, Buddy Guy etc.

The Band…

Dylan....yes I'm being cold. But I've seen him live twice and both times...78 at Western Springs, and a few years later with Tom Petty, he was beyond appalling and I guess it coloured my opinion of him evermore.

I sold everything I had apart from Blonde & 61 after the second…

Having said that, I consider the lines "Elvis, was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me..." to be superb beyond belief so I can't even call consistency in my defence!

It's even better if you're doing the Do The Right Thing opening credits dance over the…

Don't get me started on "poor old Bob", arguably the best poet of the 20th century;

nah that was Smokey...even Bob said so. But I'm with Peter most of the time, I like my musical poetry to be a part of the aural texture. I agree with you about Like…

Wholeheartedly agree Peter.

And also agree with Simon about musical innovation leaping off the back of all that has come…

Sigh. That hurts me. :)

I am on the Ian MacDonald side of things Beatle-wise: Revolver manages all that fantastic soundscape stuff that Pepper does, but without quite so much of the…

Couldn't agree more RB. I want to use the huge interactive advantage 2.0…

Voodoo Ray is Little Richard pushed into an elevator with Sgt Pepper, Sly Stone, and King Tubby. Nothing happens in a vacuum

Ok ok, you had me at King Tubby. Absolutely agree with all of that Simon. I was mainly Satanically advocating as I'm sure you know, but will confess…

Or skipped 3 decades and gone straight to House. Imagine if 'Voodoo Ray' was released in 1962, immediately making Dylan and The Beatles and everyone else completely redundant. That would've been cool.

Yes, but, and I am of the opinion that Voodoo Ray is one of the greatest pop singles…

I like Freeland's column writing a lot, but this reads like yet another bit of special pleading from a Guardian journalist.

But what interested me was the repeated claims in the discussion that…

Joe – yeah, I have a friend in Germany who plays in a reggae band. They're very popular! Record contract 'n all. Seems to be all the rage around his neck of the woods.

As well as trad reggae, reggae infused electronica seems to be popular with German DJ/Producers/Labels such…

Hmmm...

I think Bush is quite clearly acting without guidance from the Seymour Skinners of this world.

I agree, I have long lamented the proof reading on TVNZ's site

We also tend to discount the leap in literacy that has accompanied the mainstreaming of the internet.

Hmmm...

I usually find that sampling the first 5 answers shows you if the issue is controversial. Scarily, on most questions of trivia, Google seems to pick Wikipedia first. I suppose that's because everyone…

Perhaps it is dying, but it by no means is dead yet, in fact based on some of the questions I've been gettting from people not interested in tech this last few weeks, and some MSM…

Americans, outside of parts of NYC, rarely get reggae, Marley excluded (and then only the watered down later era),

Don't know if you'd call this watered down, but it's technically reggae and VERY German:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KufHGYKqH9E&mode=related&search=

and – god save us – Little Feat

Huh? Ok I know I'm not anything like knowledgable about music but I just got my Little Feat double live album out a few days ago and really liked it. What's so bad about it????

Old folks Boogie is a fun song…

That whole American rock scholar thing has always got on my tits.

I have to agree, although Simon Reynolds has made a fair tilt at continuing the tradition in the UK of recent. His interview in the recent issue of Fact was ponderous in the extreme.

Americans, outside of parts…

I just went and had a look at nz.general – it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, although it does seem that the topic generation is in the hands of the loonies: Stuff like "When will NZ stand up to the Muslims like Australia has?"

Christ,…

Yeh but my argument was kinda *for* the whole pop thing and Dylan was just the perfect ammunition for the beardies who wanted to intellectualise popular music, leading to your Lennon & McCartney unpleasantness etc...

It wasn't the musicians, it was the critics. That whole American rock scholar thing has always…

You can question my authoritah, but do not question my word mojo:

Oh no I didn't doubt it was a word (me doubt your word mojo??? I thought you were quoting Keen), from the noun infantilization!!!

I just think it's ugly, that's the point. When you could have…

Due to...um...factors, I couldn't really tell her an answer to either...

Well, it's hard to talk with your tongue in someone else's mouth.

with the photographer's knack for taking delightfully unflattering snaps, it wasn't your typical society page.

I'll never forget the day my mum rang me to ask my why I was on those Metro pages putting my tongue in the mouth of a girl she didn't know.

Due to...um...factors, I couldn't…

"trips you can do into the wild, wild country beyond Ponsonby"

Back in the (early) eighties, the "wild wild country was Ponsonby. One of my mates was badly beaten up in 1981 by the Ponsonby Youth Club! KC (King Cobra) graffitti was everywhere. When my parents bought a house there…

In truth, Dylan was, harder than anyone, working against the pop thing; promoting traditionalism; an anathema to the infantilism and narcissism of pop.

Yeh but my argument was kinda *for* the whole pop thing and Dylan was just the perfect ammunition for the beardies who wanted to intellectualise popular music,…

I had the impression that the pictures of people at parties and features on "trips you can do into the wild, wild country beyond Ponsonby" were the core of the mag.

Well, the pictures of people at parties have always been part of Metro. But they were doing it when…

Sure, all the minor revolutions Simon refers to were all about trying to fix the Dylan problem. But it never works, the genie was out of the bag, and 40 years later we have Bono.

I'm not sure if I'd describe Hip Hop, punk and elecronica as minor revolutions....and Dylan...all…

Everybody leaves Usenet.

Pffft, the greatest football discussion group ever is on Usenet. I can't imagine a Web that could ever replace it.

In 1997 the closest to PA System was the nz.general usenet group, but I eventually left that because of all the shouting (and some guy ferociously objected to my quoting style).

Everybody leaves Usenet.

I just went and had a look at nz.general – it really wasn't as bad as…

My only complaint – the way words get abused, but then I'm a pedant:). Infantilising????? really!

You can question my authoritah, but do not question my word mojo:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/infantilised
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/infantilising

Example from the New Yorker: "It creates a crisis that infantilizes them — causes grown men to squabble like kids…

I stand corrected (didn't live here then)!

I had the impression that the pictures of people at parties and features on "trips you can do into the wild, wild country beyond Ponsonby" were the core of the mag.

Keen clearly doesn't understand his own theme, and grasp the irony of using Bono as an example.

So true. All that does is peg him as out of touch. I can understand his point, I suppose, but it just looks like another 47-year-old guy who doesn't understand "the kids". I'm…

In 1997 the closest to PA System was the nz.general usenet group

Ah, the halcyon days of alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die . . .

. . . and 'wizard has summoned a Herb'.

:)

Where the wild things are

Is this the late night bikini show on E?

How many of us, even us pros, wrote as much 10 years ago as we do now?

Back then, I was very involved with various online communities. Today I still am, but I write more. Now more and more people are online, I'm able to connect with those who are…

Why does everyone hate Bono so much?

I don't...his second single was fine....but he's hardly a cultural signpost for the ages. U2 are not, in the scheme of things, important beyond being a cash cow.

Using Bono as his example was self defeating...a) he's a perfect example of a the…

I remember reading somewhere that the British Tabloids used a vocabulary of ~100 words.

So yes I agree the newsgroups back in the day and now the blogs and comments pages really have improved literacy.

What's more interesting is the way people construct ideas…

and search for ages to find the answer to some disputed fact, rather than finding it instantly with a Google search.

Ahhh but what is your confidence level that the answer that google has provided you is right? Either way you are putting yourself in the hands of third party…

I don't think I'll win, but I didn't think I'd win in 2005 and 2006 either, so I guess it's as well that I'm actually going along this time.

Oh dear, by actually going you have just jinxed your chances of winning.

So MySpace is mostly trivial...

Just like television, and…

Innovation has rarely, if ever, come from the majors.And the branding is usually little more than urban plagiarism.

Bono?.....for fux sake......

Heh, right on.

He might've got away with it if he hadn't mentioned Bono.

I'd suggest that the pervasiveness & stickiness of technology are key pieces of evidence indicating that our culture and economy is being changed rather than being killed. The fact…

4. A particularly unfashionable thought: big media is not bad media. The big media engine of the Hollywood studios, the major record labels and publishing houses has discovered and branded great 20th century popular artists of such as Alfred Hitchcock, Bono and W.G. Sebald (the “Vertigo”…

I find it ironic that a traditionally lightweight lifestyle mag (Metro) now has more interesting, thought-provoking comment in it that an allegedly serious news magazine (the Listener).