Forget the (utterly fabulous) live album, the buzz of a packed Real Groovy (and other record stores) – the very best thing to come out of Record Store Day is the huge beaming smile on Chris’ face:
Looking through a box of stuff at my parents I came across these images. I’m pretty sure I took the Trevor Reekie shot, the others I have no idea, so apologies if I’ve trashed someone’s copyright.
I’m reasonably certain they’re all previously unpublished.
From top to bottom: Dancers, venue unknown; The Terrorways at what looks to be XS Cafe; Bootgirls @ The Windsor Castle (I think); and Proud Scum, maybe Reverb Room.
And the legendary Trevor Reekie, circa 1985, complete with Marginal Era poster.
It’s with much sorrow that I say goodbye to another long-standing and very respected friend, Tony Peake.
A hugely influential figure in not only Christchurch’s but New Zealand’s music scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, without whom large parts of the things we celebrate as New Zealand music would look very different.
And a mate…..
I issued one of the first two recordings from his later band, The Newtones, on Class of 81; the slightly twisted psychedelic pop of New Way. They then managed to manipulate the always manipulatable NZ charts and pushed their debut EP, which came in at least three different coloured sleeves, into the singles listings at number 13 in May of that year, causing a fluster at RIANZ central. Another single, My World, followed.
I used to love his, often extended, visits to Auckland when we would talk music and just talk for hours; and, as much, craved the packages of singles, including my first real exposure to heavy Jamaican dub 12″s, he would send up from his incredible record store at Christchurch University. Taking advantage of an educational loophole in the draconian import laws in Muldoon’s New Zealand, it was for years the best record store in NZ, bar none.
There is a quite wonderful and evocative piece on Tony’s bands at Mysterex.
Thank you Tony. Rest peacefully.
An update / note (Friday 15th):
When I was first told of Tony’s passing (by Jim Wilson and Paul Mcneil – I woke to PMs on Facebook from both) we all made comment that we hoped that something would be written to remember an extraordinary man, but we worried that it would, as is New Zealand’s way with so much of its left of mainstream culture, simply pass into history without record. The comments on this page and the various Facebook threads have proved us wrong. I’m truly moved by all of the words under this post. I could add something cheesy here but I think Tony would’ve just told me to STFU…
I never quite get used to flying part of flying, although I’ve been stuck in these claustrophobic tin tubes 1 so many times over the years that I do it without much thought before, after, or during boarding.
The physical part of the flight is easy. I know how to check in, the tricks that get one through that process (internet check-in always, always, always 2)
The part I can never really get comfortable with is the lottery once on board, especially when transiting alone. Who is sitting in front of you? Why does the old lady three rows back insist on having an extended 3am conversation in Farsi with her husband while both have their headsets on?
I hate being forced into conversations on aircraft and dread the talkative sort placed next to me. That’s what my instantly placed Sony headphones are for. Sure they work for inflight diversion and audio too, but their primary role, at least for the first few moments before and after takeoff, are to make it obvious to the grinning inane curtain-rail salesman next to me that I have no interest in spending a few hours getting to know them or their stories. I’m not a snob. I just enjoy the fact that the aircraft seat is none of the few places on the planet that I can happily sit uninterrupted for an extended period.
And I really don’t care about your story.
Ok – I’m a snob.
As I type the brat sitting in the seat in front of me, aged about three, is leaning over, bashing my TV screen and shouting at me as his fucking mother sits obliviously watching NCIS LA. I am searching for a spare cushion to carefully press down on the charming wee thing’s face once mum has dozed off.
As I tweeted recently, the first airline to put all under fives in the cargo hold, with the pets, will get my business.
All of which is irrelevant, although I’m well pissed off that having travelled on Thai Airways (which perhaps should advertise itself as having the worst food in Thailand, just so one can compare with everything else served in the kingdom), it has not changed their in-flight movies in three months – they had a shitty selection ten weeks back – on the first of four trips. Repo Men was not good the first time. On the third spin through, it’s aged badly.
But I sound ungrateful. Russell flew me back to Auckland and for that I am not only grateful but thoroughly flattered.
I came back for the Orcon Great Blend. I found myself sitting on stage in the wonderful (aside from the drink prices I’m told..mine were free so I’m not complaining) Wintergarden, a truly unique venue that Auckland City seems to be almost oblivious to 3 and vastly under-used.
I didn’t really get what Russell was trying to pull off until I saw it and when I saw it I was overwhelmed at both how incredibly ambitious it all was, and at how well it had been achieved by both Russell and the seemingly tireless Quentin at Pead PR. I was well impressed, which, given my ongoing and increasing-with-increasing-age cynicism, which is now coupled with a seen it before somewhere personal pre-judgement for almost anything, is something. It seemed to me that the spark of the germ of a notion of an idea had come to Mr. Brown, most likely as he lay in bed trying to drift off, when, let’s be real, most of the world’s great schemes are hatched, 4 and that he’d had the sense not to listen to rational wisdom and ran with it. Indeed, after it had all worked out so well, he told me he stood back and realised the, if not enormity, but perhaps sheer inadvisable scale, that most lesser people would perhaps scale back after the initial rush of the idea, of the damn thing. The fact that he ran with it instead of listening to those voices in his head is why he is who he is.
And pull it off he / they did. It was brill and inspiring.
As Russell and Brigid will attest, I was nervous as hell before I hit the the stage. In fact, I was impossible for the week before 5. However Russell commented beforehand, correctly, that I seemed more nervous about the DJing bit than the talking bit. Damn right..playing records to a crowd like that is far more harrowing than simply talking, something I’ve done more often than my creaky mind can sometimes recall 6.
I had also worked out that anything I said would be overshadowed by the, compared to me, literary giant that is Emily Perkins (and Dylan Horrocks), and the talents of Karl Maughan, which (the talents that is) I’ve always been somewhat in awe of, even when he was staggering out of The Box after an extended night in front of the DJ booth, as he was often seen to do in the early to mid 1990s.
And with that I want to apologise.
I don’t often get told off by barmen. I got told off by the barman. However, I wasn’t alone: Roger Shepherd, Murray Cammick, Doug Hood, Harry ‘The Bastard / Ratbag’, Benny Staples, PKNY and more all got told off by the barman too. For talking during the shows. For getting all reminiscent and old school over it all when we should have been listening. We really should have been. To be fair to ourselves, part of what we were saying was was related to the works in hand on the stage. But we were saying it too loudly – it was disrespectful and a wee bit arrogant.
I’m sorry.
Okay, that’s done. I feel much better.
A couple more things to clear up:
I was not slagging off Neil Finn’s achievement at getting the most played song internationally award at the Silver Scrolls. Quite the opposite – but it’s been almost thirty years. FFS will someone knock it off that perch. We did it with How Bizarre for some five years, and that song still sits comfortably at number two (with close to 100,000 radio plays a year worldwide – still 7)
Contrary to the tweet that went out I did not play any Hanson whilst on the decks. I’d left the album at home. But I did play Altered Images and for that I have no apology to make.
And finally, thanks to Stu Page whose images of the event, including the one above are here. For more incredible shots of early punk in NZ, wander across to here.
Stuart’s vids of my interview8 are below if you missed it.
I’m not generally claustrophobic but I’ve woken in a sweat at 40k a couple of times in a mild panic, but that may have more to with the large German stranger next to me trying to snuggle up in his sleep ↩
Unless of course one is flying out of Denpasar, where, having gone through the process of checking in on-line for Air Asia, you arrive at the terminal to find that not only does nobody in the office speak any language but Bahasa Indonesia (not an issue for me but perhaps for the several million non-Indo speaking visitors that arrive yearly in this outpost of the less attractive working class ‘burbs of Perth and Sydney) but nobody at the check counters has heard of internet check in despite a torn old banner near an unattended old wooden counter proclaiming bag drop off for wired pre-bookers. The boarding pass, printed hopefully from the internet is met with initial bemusement, then torn up and a new one printed as if you are an idiot. ↩
Almost everyone I spoke to had last visited there when it was a picture theatre more than a decade back…. my last experience was a Dec 31st Nice’n'Urlich gig where the security were, in Hacienda style, searching patrons for drugs, confiscating same, none of which ever seemed to be seen again, and of which the Police had no knowledge. I guess it was a happy new year at Security Central. ↩
Either then, of after a whiskey / whisky or eight: I’m compelled and fascinated by Dan Carlin’s podcast on the political history of intoxication: Churchill spent his whole Second World War either rotten drunk or mind-numbingly hung-over and on his way to the next hang-over; JFK was drugged up to his eyeballs on mind numbing steriods, finger on the button, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, perhaps the whim to invade Russia came to Napoleon after several too many self named brandies ↩
Three times in Auckland this year someone mentioned to me that they had interviewed or talked to me in past years, and in each case I had no memory of it. Nota bene: this is not the result of ego but of fading faculties ↩
This is not sour grapes but trekking globally I hear How Bizarre everywhere, especially in Asia , where airplay is often not logged, & The US, but rarely, outside lifts and supermarkets, Don’t Dream It’s Over. I guess it must be big in Central Europe where I haven’t ventured for many years ↩
I have mixed feelings about posting these as it feels a little self serving but what the hell, and I hope I underlined how important some other people have been to my past – massive, massive talents like Alan Jansson, Jed Town, James Pinker, all the Screaming Blamatics, Suburban Reptiles, Nathan Haines and more. I’ve been privileged to work with such people ↩
“When I was a kid of 15, I would put ‘Revolution Number 9’ (The Beatles) or John Cage (experimental composer) on the turntable, and put as many radios as I could find in different stations round the room, turn the TV on, turn all the lights off, and lie on my back in the middle of the room and listen to this smorgasbord of noise. That was a little ritual I did on a Saturday night when my parents were out!”
