Monthly Archives: June 2001

Johnny Marr

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There have been two occasions when I have been really excited at the news of an upcoming tour by a musical group or artist.

The first was in 1991. I was in a hotel in Christchurch, watching the late news, probably “Nightline”. In the wacky zany bit, they announced that De La Soul were coming to New Zealand and would be playing a concert in Auckland. I was so excited that I started jumping on my bed, and my brother told me to stop acting like a dick and calm down. I saw De La Soul live at the Auckland Town Hall and it was a really fun concert.

The second time I got excited was ten years later. I’d heard that Neil Finn was going to be playing a series of concerts in Auckland with special guests Eddie Vedder, Ed O’Brien and Phil Selway from Radiohead, Lisa Germano and Sebastian Steinberg. This did not excite me. Then I saw an article saying that one more person would be joining Mr Finn, Johnny Marr.

Johnny Marr.

John Martin Maher.

JOHNNY MARR!

I squealed aloud with delight, and I don’t often squeal. The next day I went out and bought a ticket for the Friday night performance.

I’m a Smiths fan, but as well as the miserabilistic warblings of Morrissey, I equally respect and adore the guitar work of Johnny Marr. I used to put on Smiths records and just listen to the guitar in each track. As The Smiths broke up when I was about 12 years old, and it doesn’t look like a reunion will be likely, this was pretty damn exciting. Hence the squealing.

So I showed up to the St James theatre and took my place to the front right of the stage. The lights dimmed, Neil came on and played a few songs, then his band came on. I looked up, and there, standing less than three meters in front of me, was Johnny Marr. Wow.

Various songs were played. It was all fairly Marr-centric for me. I spent a lot of time watching him playing his red Gibson guitars, and the black and white electric ukulele. I can also note that he wear wearing black trousers, a patterned ’70s-style shirt and a denim jacket. He had a slightly rude-arse hair cut, but that’s not what we came for.

Things got exciting when Johnny Marr did lead vocals on one song. I don’t know what it was – I didn’t recognise it – but it had a good beat and I could dance to it.

I knew from my flatmate’s report (she saw the Monday show), and the review in the Herald that a Smiths song was covered, and indeed “There’s a Light That Never Goes Out” was played, with Neil on vocals. Johnny introduced it by asking, “is anyone depressed?” That was good. It’s such a beautiful song.

Eddie Vedder fronted Betchadupa for a few high-energy covers of some Split Enz songs. Even though my foot was hurting I jumped up and down. I feel rock. I feel no pain. Also, Mr Vedder has nice muscle tone and looks good with eyeliner on.

There were many more songs, and approximately 3953 encores. During one of them Johnny took to the microphone. His hand brushed against his guitar and I heard some echoey, reverby effects had been added. It sparked a feeling of familiarity, surely not…

He said he was going to play a song that he wrote a long time ago, but didn’t play much anymore, only on special occasions. Then he started playing and coming at me from the speaker stack just metres away was the echoey, reverby guitar of “How Soon Is Now.”

Involuntarily my jaw dropped. Do you know how cool this is? It is cool beyond words. It’s a bit like if you were in church and the vicar had just delivered a sermon, then he introduces Jesus to read some stuff from the bible. Like that, but better.

I’m searching for words to describe how incredibly excellent it was, but I think only the experience of being there could do it. Johnny Marr, less than three metres away from me playing “How Soon Is Now”! Neil Finn on vocals, Eddie Vedder noodling away on guitar up the back with Lisa Germano on violin. Then he played a bit on a harmonica in the middle of it and do believe I was lifted to a higher plane of consciousness.

It was a wonderful night, it was a truly wonderful experience. All thoughts of the Backstreet Boys disappeared and I was left with pure sonic ecstasy.

The pleasure and privilege was mine.

PharLapotron2000

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In 1932, Phar Lap – the greatest racehorse in the entire world, ever, and if you say any differently you’ll get the bash – died.

After his death his heart was removed and donated to the Australian Institute of Anatomy (now the Australian National Museum), his bones were donated to the National Museum of New Zealand (now Te Papa), and his hide was mounted and donated to the Museum of Victoria (now Melbourne Museum).

On display at Te Papa, Wellington, New Zealand: the bones of Phar Lap:

Bones!

On display at Melbourne Museum, Melbourne, Australia: the hide of Phar Lap:

Hide!

And on display at National Museum of Australia, Canberra, ACT, Australia: the heart of Phar Lap:

Heart!

This has gone on for too long! Why should the remains of this mighty horse sit unused and gathering dust in museums? It’s time for the world to get with it because it’s the new millennium, man.

The remains of Phar Lap will be reunited by any means necessary. Using space age technology and the latest scientific advances, including recent progress in the fields of genetics, cybertronics, cryogenics, voodoo and organ transplanting, Phar Lap shall be resurrected into the mighty PharLapotron2000.

Part horse, part machine, all Melbourne Cup-winning speedster.

Hypno Show

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The tickets were free, ok. And it’s not like I had anything better to do. I went to see a hypnotist perform, oh it was choice.

We got there too early and had a whole hour to kill before the show started. Other people had arrived early too, but it wasn’t due to bad planning. “We came here early to get good seats,” explained Michelle from Papatoetoe to the doorman. “I’m sorry, but the doors don’t open until half-past.”

Finally the doors opened and we sat down at a table (table = chipboard circle on a stick with an unhemmed square of red nylon acting as a table cloth). The venue was non-smoking, but as it’s usually a rock concert venue, the place had a perma-smoke aroma to it.

Gradually the theatre filled up with paying customers. Some people had obviously made an effort and dressed up, wearing their very best polar fleece vests. One lady sitting nearby was a vision in those special pants that could only be described as dress jeans, and a black sequinned top.

The bar did a roaring trade in Vodka Cruisers, the alcoholic beverage of choice for people who don’t want the yucky flavour of alcohol to get in the way of them getting pissed.

Sitting near me was a couple in their late 40s. They both looked bored shitless waiting for the show to start. (“D’ya wanna go to that hypnotist bloke?” “Yeah, all right.”)

A Nathan Haines CD played while the audience waited for the action to begin. People sat around trying to feel cool, hip and urban, but given that everyone there was lame, unhip and very suburban, that wasn’t happening.

A recorded announcement came on warning us that “hilarious hypnotism” would start in three minutes, and sure enough, it did.

By this stage I hated everything. I hated the venue, the audience, the hypnotist and myself for being there. I was really seriously considering going home. But I didn’t. I had this little niggling feeling that maybe I would actually like it and it wouldn’t be too bad.

It was pretty standard hypno-show. Get extroverts up on stage, get them to con-cen-trate, then get them to do wacky zany stuff. Ha ha ha, see that lady over there. Her name’s Barb, but she thinks she’s actually Robert Muldoon! And look, they think that cigarette being passed around is marijuana!

So like a good audience member I laughed at all the hilarious hyno-antics. I was about to conclude that I really was having a good time after all, and that the audience and I had a lot in common. But then a wonderful thing happened.

I suddenly realised that I wasn’t laughing with the audience, I was laughing at them! I was enjoying the hypno show in the way that I enjoy reading the readers letters in the TV Guide (the writers of which were probably in that audience). I was being an urban hipster!

Having realised that my punk-arse alterno-cred was intact, I happily left and rode around on a scooter, drank organic soy milk lattes and listened to acid jazz.