Yeah. About bloody time man.
And so it is true. I have received some recognition of my talents. $50 worth of recognition actually.
You see I just won me a copy of this here book.
Just by writing this here piece. So, cos I'm making more from my writing than my shooting I'm going to write a bunch more. Today.I tried scoring a copy of the book for my normal review folk, but their music editor had already scored himself a copy. And an interview with it's author. You can read his words here.
There's a nice connection with two of the other Public Address winners - the Kevin Bacon effect and all that . My mate and I were at this gig too, from memory discovering The Inhalers for the first time. I think we knew of them but hadn't actually seen them live. So we saw them live. And we both bought a copy of their LP 'Nudist on the Beach of Love' - signed and everything - straight after their gig. I haven't heard it for years. It's comicness soon got boring for me. So much so that when 'Holy Family Three Pack' came out a I didn't even consider buying it. I did, however, buy Nigel's book. (For this to make any sense you need to read the link above.) It came in a brown paper bag. With a weetbix. And a cassette. And, I think, some other stuff. I loved that cassette. It was more serious, more beautiful than The Inhalers. I've still got it somewhere, under the house with all my other tapes.
The main reason we were at that gig was to see the Able Tasmans. In my opinion, one of the most underrated NZ bands ever. (A lot of people are agreeing with me now, especially after the release of this a couple of years back.) They were touring this album. If I had a top five list of favourite NZ albums it would probably be there. Needless to say, the day after the gig, I was down at Chelsea Records, Manners Mall, handing over my hard-earned student allowance to buy the tape - from memory it came out in that weird period in the early 90s when Flying Nun were releasing new material on LP and cassette, and only occasionally releasing CDs (not that I had a CD player at the time). A couple of years later they released 'Somebody Ate My Planet'. It had some cracker songs, but wasn't as strong a whole. Then came 'Store In A Cool Place', which possibly betters 'Hey Spinner'. Possibly.
When I was helping write/edit/research this book I was disappointed that I didn't have/make time to write a chapter about the Able Tasmans. Especially when they played the Wellington book launch at the old Bodega. Graeme Humphreys even made a pointed comment about their omission. And fair enough too. They broke up soon after. I don't think it was because of us.
Along with fact checking and adding to the (then) comprehensive discography, I wrote too long a piece on Shihad. They'd only released two albums at that stage and didn't really deserve the space they got compared to, say, The Chills. I really wanted to write about Strawpeople too - give a bit of recognition to the burgeoning 'electronica' scene. But I was working and had my own band and a girlfriend and was still playing hockey and I didn't have the time.
So now I'm just waiting on Russell to send me my copy of 'Soundtrack' so I can find out just what an opinionated chap Grant Smithies is. Then I can sit comfortably (alone) in my lounge and abuse his choices and omissions. Cos that's what folk like me do.
Oh, and just to change subjects but kinda keeping with this Kevin Bacon thing, this blog thing is a weird wee world. I've suddenly started getting quite a bit of traffic thanks to onemomentcaller. He blogged me ages ago, and I've been checking in on him periodically since cos he writes good and random stuff. I recently added him to my links list, and he recently did the same for me. Since then I've been getting a few visits a day via him. So thanks mate. But what makes it really weird is that he's in Wellington and is completely anonymous to me. As I may be to him, though he at least knows my name if not my face. I'm still struggling to cope with these relationships of anonymity. I want to know the people reading me. I want to know the people I read. Just being able to say 'hi' and smile knowingly would be enough. Cos after all you are getting to know (the blog) me by reading this. Maybe.
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