Phil Warren

Phil Warren. Pic: Audioculture

Chris Bourke has written a great piece up now on Audioculture about music impresario Phil Warren, a hugely important figure in New Zealand nightlife. Go check him if you've never heard the name.

Bourke described Warren in 2002 as a man who "believed show business and politics were natural bedfellows. Both require the gift of the gab – and a natural charisma to encourage people to get out and vote for you. He knew the old gag – “politics is show business in drag” – and once put it to use when he booked Diamond Lil for a Labour Party conference. 

"Besides all the acts he booked, all the local body meetings he chaired, in the early 1970s he altered the social fabric of New Zealand when he acted like a one-man lobbyist to change archaic laws that prevented licensed drinking after 10 o’clock. “I always vote for Phil,” an Auckland friend once said. “He’s the only politician who believes people should be allowed to go out at night.”

Outside the Ace of Clubs, Cook Street, Auckland 1985, Aotea Centre
and carpark under construction in background.
Credit: Phil Warren collection

Picassos on Audioculture

Author/musician Gareth Shute has written a great piece on my old band Hallelujah Picassos over at Audioculture, 'the noisy library of nz music'. It's got a ton of photos too. Go take a look....

"In the mash-up culture of today, it’s hard to recall how rigidly bands used to stick within a single genre. When Hallelujah Picassos arrived in the late-80s, they blasted away at people’s conceptions with their feral mix of indie rock, ska, hardcore punk, and hip-hop..."

... The story of the Picassos began when a young black Dutchman named Harold caught what turned out to be the final performance of industrial duo, Death Korporation, at a late night event as part of the Auckland Fringe Festival, held at DKD Cafe, where Harold worked.

Harold had moved to rural New Zealand when he was 17, but left for Auckland as soon as he had the chance. It was the band’s haphazard cover of James Brown’s ‘It’s A Man’s World’ that took his interest and he approached the guitarist Peter McLennan a few weeks later in a local nightclub, raving about how the cover had made his night after enduring a string of bad poets blathering on. They swapped numbers and started making music.

The pair could not have been more ill-matched – Peter already looking like the Elam Arts School student that he was and Harold (AKA Roland) looking like a wiry street thug – but they hit it off...."

Dave Dobbyn: Twist

Dave Dobbyn’s induction into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame is on tonight, as part of the Apra Silver Scrolls awards. The NZ Herald will be streaming the event, watch it live this evening here.

Here's an interview I digitised from 1995 (off Frenzy), with Dobbyn talking about his album Twist, his first since moving home from Australia after a decade away. Dobbyn talks about working with Neil Finn, who produced the album. Like Finn, Dobbyn was working through on reconnecting with his homeland, and making sense of his place here.

Photo via Audioculture

Back in 1984 Russell Brown was a journalist at Rip It Up magazine, and his reporting on the Queen St riot is here (scans one and two). He's written a piece for Audioculture recalling those events, with great photos from Murray Cammick and Bryan Staff. Dobbyn's band DD Smash was playing when the riot kicked off. He was accused by Police of inflaming the crowd with his alleged comments from the stage. There's a transcript of a tape recording of that on Audioculture too.

Dobbyn ended up getting hauled in front of the courts over the riot. He told NZ Herald's Greg Dixon the case cost him $12,000 in lawyer's fees. His lawyer was Peter Williams.

Russell writes "... The truth was that although he said one thing he still regrets, the Queen Street riot was not Dave Dobbyn's fault. Alcohol certainly played a major part (laws on public drinking were changed as a consequence). So did an unruly public mood that had grown during the Springbok tour and brewed in the dying days of the Muldoon government.

But, overwhelmingly, the cause of the riot was a series of disastrous decisions by the police. A dark era of policing – the one of Gideon Tait's team policing units and their provocative raids on pubs where bands played – met its end in disaster. My reporting later went to the commission of inquiry on the riot, where I gather it was of interest.

Christmas of 1984, at a barbecue at my parents' place in Upper Hutt, I was talking to a senior Māori policeman, a friend of the family.

"So," my dad piped up, "Russell says you guys blew it at Aotea Square." I cringed and inwardly cursed my father for raising it.

"Yeah," said the policeman, sadly, looking at us both. "We did."

Ripper Records' Bryan Staff (top right) taking photos in Queen Street - Photo by Bruce Jarvis, via Audioculture

Audioculture talk

 If you missed the Audiocultue talk at the Auckland Library last week, here's the audio - featuring Audioculture's Simon Grigg, Murray Cammick, and Steve Shaw.

Audioculture talk

Simon Grigg (L), Murray Cammick, outside site of punk club Zwines

This free talk is on at the Auckland Central Library in Lorne St,  Thursday 3 October, 6pm - 7.30pm. These fellas have music stories for days, bound to be entertaining....

Audioculture: A history of popular music in NZ
When: Thursday 3 October, 6pm - 7.30pm
Where: Central City Library, Whare Wananga Level 2

Join Simon Grigg and Murray Cammick as they discuss their ambitious plans for music website AudioCulture, which aims to document the history of New Zealand music culture.

Simon and Murray will speak about working with artists, historians and music industry people to tell the stories of nearly 100 years of New Zealand popular music, from the first vinyl recording in the 1920s to digital streaming. AudioCulture is an evolving, online celebration of New Zealand music. The site aims to highlight the people who have created the music, the scenes they shaped, and the audiences they played to.

Join us for a welcome glass of wine from 6pm before the talk begins at 6.30pm.

Speaker bios
Simon Grigg is a New Zealand music businessman, writer, broadcaster, publisher, producer, DJ and archivist. He has owned record labels, night clubs and managed bands and has always been in the thick of the local music scene.

Murray Cammick is a New Zealand popular music journalist, photographer and record label founder. He is best known for being the co-founder of Rip-It-Up and being editor when it was good.

From Auckland Library website.

How bizarre wax

I've wanted a copy of How Bizarre on vinyl for ages. As a DJ, it's one of those great Kiwi tunes that just makes people smile whenever you play it. Like when I drop Slice of Heaven. Dobbo and Herbs, gold.

I finally found a copy recently, floating round in the 2nd hand vinyl bins up at Conch Records. Local DJ Manuel Bundy had had a bit of a clear out and was parting with it (thanks Manny!). Of course Manuel observed the How Bizarre phenomenon firsthand, as he toured the world as part of OMC's live band in 1997.

He talked about that time in an interview with yours truly over at Audioculture - he said “The one thing about Pauly – there was that classic tall poppy syndrome, a lot of people dissed ‘How Bizarre’, a lot of the hip-hoppers – but no one analysed it, and thought 'why was it a hit?' It’s because the way he looked, people didn't know where to put him ... That’s why it was a hit. He was like this Polynesian Elvis from outer space!"

This promo oddity was slung together by some marketing guru at Polygram Canada in 1996. They had the stupendously weird notion that How Bizarre would sit comfortably alongside a Grease Megamix. It doesn't. The flip is two appallingly bad club mixes of How Bizarre.

Simon Grigg (boss of OMC's label Huh!) tells me that they were very unhappy when this promo turned up and Pauly Fuemana was furious.

ADDED: There's plans afoot to remaster/reissue the OMC album early next year, with bonus tracks, hopefully including the acapella of How Bizarre.

$ numbers

Audioculture's Simon Grigg and Murray Cammick

Broadcasting Minister Craig Foss put out a press release today trumpeting viewer numbers for NZ On Screen (over 1 million visits in the past year).

He also mentions that NZ On Air last month approved continued funding for NZ on Screen, Audioculture, and The Audience. "Audioculture was launched on 31 May 2013 and has had 78,808 page views."

Read the full release here: "More Kiwi content being viewed online"