Archive for November, 2001

Holistic Health Festival

Published
by
Robyn
on November 26, 2001
in Events
. 0 Comments

It used to be the site of one of Hamilton’s rubbish dumps. Trailer loads, truckloads, tonnes of rubbish were dumped on the strip of land between Cobham Drive and the Waikato River. But that was years ago. Eventually the dump was closed, a bunch of top soil was put over the rubbish and the area was turned into the splendid Hamilton Gardens. On this site the Festival of Holistic Health was being held. It was a Sunday afternoon, I had nothing better to do, so I went.

I got to the doorway of the Hamilton Pavilion. Previous events at this venue include the 1991 Hillcrest High School ball, and the record fair where I got that really cool Pixies bootleg. But today it was overrun with stalls manned by women in their forties.

I knew there was a $5 admission fee, but there was no obvious place to pay. There was a desk by the door but it was just some guy selling incense. I wandered in, thinking maybe there would be an admission stand inside the door.

“Excuse! Have you paid?!”

I turned around and there was a woman with a bumbag strapped on. She’s been standing off to the side chatting with some friends. She had skilfully managed to blend in with the surrounding ageing hippy environment. I paid her $5, she stamped my arm and I walked on in.

Incense, crystals, former bored housewives giving tarot card readings. They were all there. One woman was busy with some coloured pencils and a pad of paper. She was a spiritual portrait artist, her unique talent being “revealing the face of your personal spirit guide of loved one.” A selection of portraits she’d done adorned her booth walls. They all looked like versions the same of person, like maybe a family of spirit guides. Kindly old woman, kindly old man, kindly young woman, kindly guy who looks a bit like Nandor Tanczos.

Being close to Christmas, there were many stands offering their wares as Christmas presents. “This is a wonderful, peaceful, heart-warming CD,” one sign read. “A great Xmas present”. Sadly I couldn’t think of anyone in my life who would appreciate such a gift.

There were many people offering tarot card readings. I wasn’t quite ready to shell out over $30 for a reading, so I was excited when I saw a bowl of little scrolls sitting above a pond of water. A sign read, “Into the water, coin of gold, for you the oracle, will be told.” I plopped $1 in and selected one of the scrolls. The oracle’s words of wisdom were:

“Listen to the hearts voice with openness and trust”. Righto.

Most people were trying to sell something. So often I’d go over to a stand just to browse and the woman sitting behind it would launch into a sales pitch, and the next thing she’d be smearing herbal massage oil over the back of my hand.

As I walked past one stand, which looked like it was a new age version of door-to-door cosmetics, a woman sitting near it suddenly stood up and said, “hi! How you are!” I told her I was ok, and walked on as she tried to keep the conversation going.

An abundance of homemade, photocopied brochures soon accumulated in my bag. Highlights included the Tarot Summer School (”Fortune telling in the 21st century”), bottled water (”How can alkaline micro water help me lose weight?”) and aura photography (”actually measures your energy field and displays it with lights and colours)”.

There were a few sites that didn’t have a sales agenda. Greenpeace had a stand where I picked up a copy of their “GE Free Food Guide”. SAFE also had a stand, manned by spunky, tattooed young people. It was a welcome change from the fat ladies offering “hands-on healing”.

I was getting tired of all the sales pitches and decided to get out of there. My last stop was the food stand where I got a plate of Greek beans. After I’d bought them, the guy who served me asked how I was finding the festival. I told him about the lady who’d covered my hands with massage oil, he said there’d been people actually doing hand massages last year. It was the first conversation I’d had that wasn’t part of a sales pitch. With that pleasant note I decided to call it a day. I ate the Greek beans then left the site of the former rubbish dump.

Proper Top Ten

Published
by
Robyn
on November 10, 2001
in Music
. 0 Comments

Recently the Australasian Performing Rights Association (APRA) announced the top ten New Zealand songs of the past 75 years, as voted by its members and a group of 100 others. Not everyone agreed with the winners, and various publications have come up with their own “we was robbed” lists of people who they reckon should have been on the list.

I too have been thinking about worthy recipients who seem to have been inexplicably been left of the list. So here is my list of what I reckon truly are the top ten New Zealand songs of all time:

10. Zed - Daisy
People are always going on about Zed being a pretty boy band, but I’d never really given that much thought until I saw the “Renegade Fighter” video. And oh, yes, Zed’s bass player. He’s niiiice. But anyway, I think that “Daisy” is worthy of being on this because Zed cleverly rhyme “cow, yeah” with “go figure.” Also, their bass player is a spunk.

9. Supergroove - Can’t Get Enough
I was trying to decide between this one and “You got to know”. Even though the latter has plenty of dodgy lyrics, in the end I picked “Can’t get enough” because it’s funny when you change the chorus to “can’t get it up, can’t get it up, no!” Also of significance, they pronounce ‘can’t’ the New Zealand way, where as many lesser bands would put on a bad American accent.

8. Tex Pistol and Rikki Morris - Nobody Else
Remember the video for this one? It was more ironic than the Alanis’ “Ironic” video. The song was called “Nobody Else,” but the video featured the dude singing it, his brother, his wife, a choir of children, then a behind-the-scenes sequence showing the entire production crew. Well yeah, I don’t think there was anybody else left. So for a textbook example of irony, this song gets included.

7. Double J and Twice the T - Mod Rap
This song is actually officially known as “She’s a Mod/Mod Rap,” but we can’t count the “She’s a mod” part of it because that was not written by a New Zealander. Instead I’ve chosen to honour the rap from this song by these two lads. They skilfully transformed the song from a pop song about a mod chick, to an ode to their mother, a former mod chick who was bringing her modness to the dinner table. There was also a beat-boxing solo.

6. Fan Club - Sensation
Remember when laser light displays in nightclubs were really new? I don’t, but I like to think of “Sensation” as being the soundtrack to mid-late eighties night clubbing. The killer synth intro, the catchy chorus, and, of course, “bright lights, good times!” The Fan Club paved the way for other bands of guys with dodgy hair, fronted by a good looking chick. Without Fan Club there would be no Stella, no Fur Patrol, and certainly no Tadpole.

5. Delta - Slather
Exploding onto the Auckland rock scene with their bombastic single “Slather,” Delta sadly didn’t survive long enough to release an album. But “Slather” made its mark on the New Zealand music scene like a red hot branding iron on skin. Delta may have broken up, but the rockin’ scar tissue of their power remains.

4. Blackjack - I Don’t Have A Gun
Feeling shocked and betrayed by the death of grunge rock icon Kurt Cobain, Hamilton’s hardest working rock unit penned this tender ballad. Cleverly rhyming “pain” with “Cobain,” the song deals with the devastation that Cobain’s death caused to the world of hard working rock units. After all, Kurt said he didn’t have a gun, but he shot himself.

3. Push Push - Trippin’
So imagine a school dance, circa 1991. There’s a crappy covers band playing crappy covers. The band takes a break and a mix tape with the current hits of the day comes on. Just as “Trippin’” starts, the band is ready to come pack on, so the tape is stopped. The crowd boos, and yells “put the tape back on!” The tape is put back on. The crowd rocks out. That is why “Trippin’” is worthy of inclusion on this list.

2. MSU - Bob
“Hi, my name is Bob. I have got no job. People call me a knob, and they smack me in the gob.” Allegedly called “Bob” because nothing rhymes with Rohan Marx, “Bob,” by Hamilton good time fun band Mobile Stud Unit has a special place in the hearts of many student radio listeners since the song first came to the public’s attention in 1993. For the sheer joy and drunken revelry that “Bob” evokes in the face of adversity, “Bob” had surely earned its place on this list.

1. MC OJ and the Rhythm Slave - Joined at the Hip Hop
The question wasn’t “should OJ/Slave be in the top ten,” or “should one of their songs be number one” but rather, “which song of theirs?” I think “Joined at the hip hop” is the obvious choice. It laid down the beats and laid down the law. It established the rappin’ duo in the New Zealand music scene and paved the way for all white boy rappers who came after them.