Posts by rodgerd
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My quoted comment was definitely not directed at you, but at another commenter who I didn't name in an attempt to avoid a personal flame war (though I'd hoped that calling him a newbie might have clarified it enough).
I think you've rather missed Deborah's point - she was upset that the only person who she'd noticed remonstrating with what she considered unacceptable behaviour was getting jumped on for his troubles.
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This is more a of a general comment, but I have felt for some time now that the high water mark of the NZ music 'boomlet' was in 2005.
How taste shapes the world. I'd place it a bit earlier, mostly because I'm more a Shihad/Feelers/pre-blanded Fur Patrol kind of person.
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Can we go back to the silly jokes now?
Does that mean I won't need my pitchfork and torches?
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Have to agree with Simon about the Hit Discs though. They used to be quite good compilations. Now I'm lucky if I can find two tracks I like.
Yeah, but you're a cranky old git who doesn't get Tool.
I kid because I love 8).
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I didn't say either of those things, but Enz were smart enough to be where they could make a living.
Indeed. And I wouldn't criticise them for that, any more than I'd criticise Len Lye for going abroad to find people who could appreciate his brilliance, since no-one outside the Govett Brewster could.
But I guess I want to try and draw people into thinking about what makes something New Zealand flavoured, and what degree of flavour it's worth collectively shelling out to support. And of course, whether being New Zealand flavoured makes something otherwise not great or interesting worth supporting (and I say that as someone who thinks the New Zealand flavour of Shortland Street has made it worth having, even if it's just another soap).
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__As is your explanation of why it's naive to think people are forced, as at gunpoint, into changing the style of music they produce.__
with respect Roger, I don't think you have perhaps dealt with a major record company, or seen a recording contract with such....
You are quite right, a fact for which I'm quite grateful. I'm aware that once signed up to a major record company one's fate is largely in their hands ("Oh, I'm sorry, we won't be releasing the album you've recorded, but you can't release it through anyone else, and you still owe us an album"). The comment was spawned from discussion about the fact that there are more than a few people who get out and make the music they love and care about without doing so on a commercial basis. People don't have to quit their day job, they choose to. The compromises that come after that are a result of saying, "I wish to be commercially successful enough to make a living from music" in the first place.
Now, if you're asking me if I think it sucks that people who are talented artists can't make a living out of it because the music industry rewards a handful of people (often with marginal ability) with mega-riches and the rest are lucky to break even, then I agree. As Stephen Judd mentioned in an earlier discussion the death of the professional musician started a long time ago, about when you could get recorded copies of music for less than the cost of hiring an actual musician.
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Nobody is suggesting that Roger...or at least I'm not.
It wasn't really a barbed aimed specifically at you but, to echo an earlier post: people who don't like the current, quite commercially oriented system need to explain what they think would make things better, and most importantly what their desired outcomes are.
We're all tossing around terms like "real New Zealand music" without really explaining why we think Split Enz (who, let us note, Neil Finn re-formed without once touring New Zealand on their most recent gigs, and spent a significant portion of their time in London and Australia when they were active) are "real New Zealand music" while elemenop or whoever aren't.
In any discussion of public funding of culture there's always going to be tension between people who want only to fund stuff that's comfortable for most of us, people who see no value funding anything that is less challenging to Joe Average than a Mapplethorpe exhibition, and points in between.
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Your inability to answer a few simple questions about what you think the system should look like are conspicuous by their absence, robbery. As is your explanation of why it's naive to think people are forced, as at gunpoint, into changing the style of music they produce.
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Unfortunately I quickly realised that radio hadn't embraced NZ music, NZ music had produced a brand fluffy enough for radio to touch
You know, I don't much like hip-hop, but I can see a pretty clear difference between the generally locally-focused, not horribly mysoginistic stuff that I've seen on NZ music shows for the past few years from the revolting crap that we see from the States, and I'm not talking about the difference between a hip-hop intellectual (for want of a better term) like Che Fu, I mean the difference between "Stop, Drop and Roll" and, well, pick a random collection of "bitch" here and "ho" there.
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that's a bit naive.
You use that word, but I don't think you know what it means.
We've all got choices but the overriding insentive is that if you want a crack at doing this for a living you better tow the commercial line
And so what are you proposing? Depositing taxpayer largesse on people who make music New Zealanders don't listen to?
We already have the NZSO for that.
You're putting a lot of erbiage into attacking the current system, but I find myself wondering what you'd replace it with.
if you don't want to do that feel free to continue being poor and sooner or later having to devote less and less of your time to making music, till you completely stop. that's the message that is being sent.
Really? I thought it was "if you want to be a commercially succesful musician, we'll give you money, if you want to write and perform music soley for your own pleasure, that's a hobby you can pay for."
Again, I'd love for people to be clearer about their view of what "real New Zealand music" is. As a Taranaki lad I had very little interest in most of what Flying Nun churned out in its supposed golden age when I was growing up; jangly guitars and shoegazing arn't generally my speed, and the popularity of the Mushroom Ball would suggest I was hardly the only one. Yet the more-or-less official history of NZ music is that the Dunedin Sound was Kiwi music, alpha and omega, when I was growing up. In my neck of the woods you'd have got more mileage out of suggesting throwing money at Sticky Flith.