Brazier: New album!

 

Here’s something you need to get behind: A Pre-Sales Campaign to release the last Graham Brazier album 'Left Turn at Midnght.'

Graham was working on the album in the two years before he died, and his contribution is virtually complete. His friends have got together a crowd-funding campaign at Indiegogo – the sort of thing you can do in the Age of the Internet – to have the album professionally completed, with your perk for being involved either a download, a CD copy of the new album, right up to an exclusive listening evening on the night of its release. Here’s the tale:

Graham Brazier is one of New Zealand greatest music legends. Graham passed away on the 4th of September 2015. He was loved songwriter and poet and one of New Zealand's most recognised voices. Most will remember him as the enigmatic front man of  legendary band 'Hello Sailor'. 
For the two years previous to his passing, Graham had been coming into Uptown Studios weekly with producer Alan Jansson. Little did we know, they were working on what would become Graham's final legacy to New Zealand Music.
Only a couple of weeks before Graham's passing, he had completed laying  the tracks. 
We now aim to finish & release his final album. 
Graham Brazier  - Left Turn at Midnight.
Those who have heard  songs on the  the album in progress,  feel it is Graham's best work. They are all fantastic new songs.

Listen to an interview here about the album with producer Alan Jansson (co-writer of international hit How Bizarre, so he does know what he’s doing).

Sailor’s swansong

Just been to help farewell Graham Brazier; appropriately on a day when the sky is crying and, for a man of music & poetry, buried today with both . . .

from L'Albatros (The Albatross)
by Charles Baudelaire
Describing Graham

“The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds
Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day;
But on the ground, among the hooting crowds,
He cannot walk, his wings are in the way.”

I leave thy praises unexpressed,
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

I leave thy praises unexpressed
In verse that brings myself relief,
And by the measure of my grief
I leave thy greatness to be guessed;
What practice howsoe'er expert
In fitting aptest words to things,
Or voice the richest-toned that sings,
Hath power to give thee as thou wert?
I care not in these fading days
To raise a cry that lasts not long,
And round thee with the breeze of song
To stir a little dust of praise.
Thy leaf has perished in the green,
And, while we breathe beneath the sun,
The world which credits what is done
Is cold to all that might have been.
So here shall silence guard thy fame;
But somewhere, out of human view,
Whate'er thy hands are set to do
Is wrought with tumult of acclaim.

Sailors Song
By Bob Orr
Dedicated to Graham Brazier

You are a sailor of a different kind-
Not for you the red and white lighthouse
That conspires with me to mark the blue sea a darker blue.
Mermaids promise milk and honey.
For you not to believe them would be death of poetry.
There used to be a cutting edge around this place
Even if it was only a broken glass in your face.
More than once outside Three Lamps
The gutters ran deeper red than neon
Francois Villon would have felt at home.
Tonight I hear your bitch at midnight howl the blues
Beneath a Surrey Crescent moon... she and you both know
That in such gardens of danger wild creatures still roam.
Sometimes I hear Gods pounding up the pavement
Angels with broken wings cursing into rubbish bins.
When will the post office clock
Tell me what is written on the back of its hands.
Here only pigeons know if buses leave on time.
Not far away a certain chimney pot.
Reminds me of the tombstone of a poet or a prince long centuries gone.
Graham Brazier at the beginning of his twenty first century
Let me raise my glass
To salute your Bronze Age heart.
In the neck of this bottle a great fleet has just weighed anchor.
Let’s drink to all those sea sick sailors
Waking up in love lost cities.
Let’s drink to the days when we danced
With a Blue Lady.

[Pic by Russell Brown. Poetic tributes posted delivered respectively by Karyn Hay, Les Mills, the Order of Service, and Rob Tuwhare]

Hello Sailor front-man Graham Brazier dies, age 63 [updating]

Oh shit.

Hello Sailor front-man Graham Brazier dies, age 63

UPDATE: I fear the Herald had prepared their obituary for poor Graham ahead of time …

"First, foremost and always I am a songwriter.”

“As Dave McArtney once said of their respective roles: ‘I was the melody, Graham was the balls’."

Metro:

Again, there’s a tear in the singer’s eye.
“And he’ll never sing that live again because he’s brown bread.”

Martin Edmond:
”In later years he was like a ruined king of a ruined kingdom on a ruined throne; but the splendour was real.”

BBC:
“He was a star, he could sing like angel. He was a poet so he could write. He had that bad boy quality. He was a constant source of amusement, excitement and astonishment."

Audio Culture:
”The perception of Hello Sailor has changed over the years…”

His last-ever interview:
"Graham actually said to Alan Jansson 'Oh mate, can we hurry this album up because I don't want this album to be posthumous'. It obviously turned out to be prophetic. The new album, titled Left Turn at Midnight, would likely be released towards the end of the year...”

Grant Smithies:
”He was soft-spoken, erudite, articulate and funny, and had no intention of thumping me in the dunnies at some future awards dinner, so long as I did him a favour. Rather than ‘getting in the ring together,’ he was prepared to let me off the hook if I wrote something nice about his mum.”

Don McGlashan:
”He breathed music & literature; meant every note he sang, & walked a tough path with grace. Dominion Rd will be emptier now.”

What Raymond Chandler wrote about his hero Philip Marlowe seems to fit Graham like one of his many leather jackets:

Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. [He is] a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He [is], to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honour. He talks as the man of his age [should] talk, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.

 

And now they’ve both gone, Dave & Graham both, both of these two fabulous fuckers …

Billy Bold Live

Robyn Gallagher @5000ways: “A good way to remember Graham Brazier - starts with a poem, then the video for ‘In Your Company’ (feat. his mum)”:

Song for a Sunday morning

Graham Brazier singing his NZ rebel anthem, Billy Bold, at the Titirangi Memorial Hall, with his late, dear friend Dave McArtney supporting on guitar and vocals.

Billy Bold Live

NZ Music Month: ‘Closing Time’

For those who’ve been looking forward to it … it’s closing time.

Music by Brazier, photography by various esp. Murray Cammick, video by Clouso

More from Graham Brazier and friends:

Last one in my one-post-a-day music post for NZ Music Month, closing with the 1979 Hello Sailor playing ‘Blue Lady’ with The Doors’ Ray Manzarek. Just because I can.

Mind you, I’m not promising I’ve finished…

30 Songs [updated]

George from The Nevermind Aesthetic didn’t tag me for this, but I did it anyway because I was curious.

Instructions...if you're interested:
1. Turn on whatever MP3 player you possess.
2. Go to SHUFFLE songs mode.
3. Write down the first 30 songs or more that come up--song title and artist.
4. NO editing/cheating, please. Write them order.
5. Choose 25 (or so) people to be tagged...or not. 
So here goes:

Ain’t No Right – Jane’s Addiction
How Do You Think It Feels? – Lou Reed
Sixty Seconds to What – Ennio Morricone
Caution – Bob Marley
Tremolo – Marc Chesterman/Woodenhead soundtrack)

Fruhling – Jesse Norman, singing Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs
Making Plans for Nigel – Nouvelle Vogue
Ennui – Graham Brazier
Oop Bop Sh’ Bam – Dizzy Gillespie
Daddy’s a Postman – Graham Parker

Charade – Henry Mancini
Diamantina Drover – Redgum
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl – Muddy Waters
Enola/Alone – Manic Street Preachers
Aquarium – Saint Saens

Autograph – Bernard Butler
Evil Lies in that Ring (Act 3, Scene 1, Siegfried) – Richard Wagner
Virtuoso Etudes after Gershwin – Earl Wild
Memories are Made of This – Mario Lanza (after Dean Martin)
Der Engel – KIrsten Flagstad, singing Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder

People Move On – Bernard Butler
The Card Cheat – The Clash
I Think I’m a Mother – PJ Harvey
Green Walls – Toy Love
Wind on Water – Fripp & Eno

Whispering Streets – Barry Adamson
Criollo – Phil Manzanera
Lawless – Christy Moore
Ho-Ho Schmiede Mein Hammer – Lauritz Melchior singing the ‘Forging Song’ from Act 1 of Richard Wagner’s Siegfried
Amarcord Suite - Nino Rota

So there you go.  Some great curiosities there.

I won’t tag anyone but if you’d like to be tagged just leave a note in the comments so I can link to your post in an update.

UPDATE: MacDoctor’s had a crack at the game.

NZ Music Month: My Favourites

Last time I told you my top five or so favourite NZ albums I could only post links to the albums – and I sensed you all passed quickly past. Now YouTube has changed all that, so here for your listening and reading pleasure in NZ Music Month are my own top ten all-time favourite NZ albums in, ah, 'autobiographical' order. Now with clips! (Some of them sometimes even related to the albums listed!)

• Hello Sailor: Hello Sailor – thrashed this to album to death when I was about thirteen. And as Jennie could tell you, "my life was saved by rock n’ roll.”
  
• AK79 – and then there was punk
  
• Toy Love: Toy Love
  
• Graham Brazier: Inside Out
  
• Hammond Gamble: Plugged in & Blue
  
• Luke Hurley: Reha – not much decent video of old Luke.  This looks to be about it.
  
• Kiri te Kanawa: Four Last Songs – music to live up to
  
• NZ's opera knight Donald McIntyre singing in Wagner’s Die Walkure
  
• Kiri: Songs of the Auvergne – bonus point if you know in which unforgettable local movie it was used in
  
• Little Bushman: Pendulum (can you spot old Big Nose down the front?)
  

So what are your favourite NZ albums?  Come on, ‘fess up now.

Wine O'Clock

Don't worry, the regular Friday avo Beer O'Clock posts will be reappearing once the holiday season is over and your regular correspondents return. 

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to getting up to Ascension Vineyard in Matakana tonight to enjoy the music of Graham Brazier and Dave McCartney, and the fine products of a very good vineyard.

It should be an awful experience...

Coffee, cigarettes and freedom from oppression

Here's a wee bit of poetry written for Libertarianz by Graham Brazier a few years back, somewhat appropriate for this era of apathy and rampant killjoyism:

Coffee, cigarettes and freedom from oppression

As we head for the abyss in our brand new automobile
Cellphone to the ear, a shirt that reads “no fear”
I have only one last wish, one last impression
give me coffee, cigarettes and freedom from oppression

Regardless of your hairstyle, and the clothing that you dress in
give us coffee, cigarettes and freedom from oppression

And if the dailies read correctly, and we believe all that we read
indeed the time has come for fear, be very scared indeed
So I feel the wind ablowing from the new depression
Give me coffee cigarettes and freedom from oppression

So now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the lord my soul to keep
And should I die before I wake
My last request and no mistake
Give me coffee, cigarettes and freedom from oppression.

© B.Bold Music, 2000

NZ Music: Top Five

For NZ Music Month, the Sunday Star is asking for readers' favourite five NZ albums "of any style, from any era." Here's mine. For regular readers, there'll be few surprises.

• Inside Out - Graham Brazier
  Quite simply NZ's finest rock album, crowned with our finest 'rebel' song, 'Billy Bold' -- an anthem worthy of the name.
  
  
• Plugged in and Blue - Hammond Gamble
  Great electric blues and originals from a highly underrated guitarist of great expressive genius, with that guitar showcased here much better that his otherwise superb solo album 'Every Whisper Shouts.'
  
  
• Donald McIntyre's humane Hans Sachs from the classic Sydney performance of Wagner's Die Miestersinger von Nurnburg.
  Not specifically a "New Zealand album" I guess, but the performance of this world-class New Zealander here is so magnificent and so dominates the show that it demands inclusion.
  
  
• AK79
  For a young teenager (me) who had to steal his way into town to try and hear these songs and this attitude, the record captures a moment in time that spelled promise for me and for the musos featured. 'It's Bigger Than Both of Us' was strong competition for this, but even as a double just not quite strong enough.
  
  
• Kiri Te Kanawa singing Richard Strauss' 'Four Last Songs' might seem a world and a lifetime away from 'AK79' (and it is), but as bookends for a life of hope and promise fulfilled, and with these four songs (as the sleeve says) "sad, serene, suggest[ing] the completion of a journey, a journey from spring to winter, from morning to evening, from youth to old age," they seem to me the perfect complement.
  

So that's my five. What are your five faves from Outer-Roa?

Music meme

Here's a challenge from Paula you might want to pick up.

NAME UP TO THREE:

Song(s) That I Loathe to the Core of My Being
- God Defend New Zealand (the world's worst anthem)
- Ten Guitars (the world's second-worst anthem)
- Staying Alive, Bee Gees
Musical artist(s) That I Loathe to the Core of My Being
- Barry Manilow
- Elton John
- Pink Floyd
Rolling Stones Song(s) I Like
- Sympathy for the Devil
- Pay it Back ;^)
Beatles Song(s) I Love
- Taxman
- And My Bird Can Sing
- While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Who Song(s) I Love
- Love, Reign Over Me
- I Can't Explain
- Can You See the Real Me
Dylan Song(s) I Love
- It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
- Every Grain of Sand
- Ballad of a Thin Man
Lou Reed/Velvet Underground Song(s) I Love
- Coney Island Baby
- It Wasn't Me
- Pale Blue Eyes
Reggae Songs I Love
- Johnny Was, Bob Marley
- Police and Thieves, Junior Murvin
- Sonny's Letter (Anti-Sus Poem), Linton Kwesi Johnson
Country Song(s) I Can Stomach
- This Drinking Will Kill Me, Dwight Yoakam
- One, Johnny Cash (proof that every singer and every songwriter might just have one good song in them)
Movie Soundtrack(s) I Love
- Cotton Club, John Barry
- Amadeus, Wolfgang Amadeus Someone or Other
- anything by Ennio Morricone
- anything by Nino Rota
Cover Song(s) I Love
- Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael, performed by Louis Armstrong
- Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, performed by John Cale
- Sweet Jane by Lou Reed, covered by Cowboy Junkies
Contemporary Top-40 Artist(s) I Secretly Love
... I don't think I even know any contemporary top-forty artists...
Song(s) That Bring Me To Tears
- Papa's Song, Les Miserables
- Missing You, Christy Moore
Rap/Hip Hop Song(s) I Can Stomach
- Original Wrapper, Lou Reed
Blues Songs I Love
- 32:20 Blues, Robert Johnson
- Stomp Boogie, John Lee Hooker
- Killing Floor, Howling Wolf
Novelty Song(s) I Love
- Big Bottom, Spinal Tap
- Monkey Song, Hoagy Carmichael
- Ying Tong Song, The Goons
Soul/R&B Songs I Love
- Try a Little Tenderness, Otis Redding
- Land of a Thousand Dances, Wilson Picket
- Motown Junk, Manic Street Preachers ;^)
Power Ballad(s) I Love
- Because the Night, Patti Smith
- Nothing Else Matters, Metallica
- Passion Play, Hello Sailor
Pre 1950s Song(s) I Love
- Ain't Misbehavin', Louis Armstrong
- Im Treibhaus, Richard Wagner
- Body and Soul, Coleman Hawkins
Singer/Songwriter Songs I Love
- From St Kilda to Kings Cross, Paul Kelly
- No Man's Land, Eric Bogle
- Your Ghost, Kristin Hersh
Songs I Still Love From When I was Fourteen
- Smash it Up, Damned
- Transmission, Joy Division
- Search and Destroy, Iggy & the Stooges
Song(s) to Have Sex To
- Leibestod, Richard Wagner
- Roll Up to My Bumper, Grace Jones
- European Female, Stranglers
Drinking Song(s)I Love
- Vagabond's Drinking Song, Mario Lanza
- Billy Bold, Graham Brazier
- Boys from County Hell, Pogues

RELATED: Music

Break-up songs

For once, Rick Giles has an idea worth borrowing (who would have thunk it?). He's posted a short-list of breakup songs. I think we can do better, after all popular music has a breakup song for every mood, so here's a longer list, which still only scratches the surface:

WISTFUL: The Best of Everything - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
"Wherever you are tonight, I wish you the best of everything, In the World, And I hope you found, Whatever you were looking for."

JUVENILE: Song for the Dumped - Ben Folds Five
"So you wanted to take a break? Slow it down some, and have some space? Well fuck you too! Give me my money back, Give me my money back, you bitch."

SONG FOR THE DUMP-ER: I Useta Love Her - Saw Doctors
"So now you know the truth of it she’s no longer my obsession, Though the thoughts and dreams I had of her would take six months in confession. See I met this young one Thursday night and she’s inta free expression. And her mission is to rid the world of sinful repression. Then we had a session..."

HONEST: Toy Love Song - Toy Love
"'Cos when I see you by my side, I wonder if you're suicide, Affects me like I feel it ought to do. Or was our loving just a toy, A crazy girl a stupid boy, Ignoring things that could have made it true..."

SELF-FLAGELLATING: Blue Valentines - Tom Waits
"And it takes a lot of whiskey, To make these nightmares go away, And I cut my bleedin' heart out every night. And I die a little more on each St. Valentines day. Remember that I promised I would Write, you... These blue valentines..."

INDECISIVE: Should I Stay or Should I Go - The Clash
"This indecisions bugging me, If you dont want me, set me free..."

VENGEFUL: Sometimes - The Stranglers
"Somebody's gonna call your bluff, Somebody's gonna treat you rough, Sometimes there's only one way out, I gotta fight!"

DISBELIEF: No You! - Paul Kelly
"I go up and down, And every single sound says, No you! No you! No you! No you! No you, no you, no you!"

FANTASY: I'll Come Running (To Tie Your Shoe) - Brian Eno
"I sit playing solitaire by the window. Just waiting, seasons change, ah hah, you'll see, Some day these dreams will pull you through my door..."

IT'S COMPLICATED: Pale Blue Eyes - Velvet Underground
"Thought of you as my mountain top. Thought of you as my peak. I thought of you as everything I've had, but couldn't keep. I've had, but couldn't keep... Skip a life completely. Stuff it in a cup. They said, money is like us in time, It lies, but can't stand up. Down for you is up."

IT'S NOT YOU, IT'S ME: It Ain't Me, Babe - Bob Dylan
"You say you're lookin' for someone, Never weak but always strong, To protect you an' defend you, Whether you are right or wrong, Someone to open each and every door, But it ain't me, babe, No, no, no, it ain't me, babe, It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe."

LINGERING RESENTMENT: Pretty as a Picture - Hammond Gamble
"And I'll send you a card for Christmas, one at Easter time, Call and see the children in the summer time..."

"I JUST HAD TO": Ruby's Arms - Tom Waits
"So jesus christ this goddamn rain, Will someone put me on a train, I'll never kiss your lips again, Or break your heart..."

FINALITY: It's Over - Graham Brazier
"See the change, See the way... See that gleam in her eye, Telling you it's all over."

OH SHIT: Stephanie Says - Velvet Underground
"Stephanie says that she wants to know, Why she's given half her life, to people she hates now..."

OH FUCK: It's All Over Now, Baby Blue - Bob Dylan
"The lover who just walked out your door, Has taken all his blankets from the floor.
The carpet, too, is moving under you, And its all over now, baby blue."

NO HOPE: Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
"When routine bites hard, and ambitions are low, And resentment rides high, but emotions won't grow. And we're changing our ways, taking different roads, Then love, love will tear us apart, again."

There are musicians who've carved whole careers out of break-up songs. Hank Williams for instance:

"Your cheating heart will pine some day, And crave the love you threw away. The time will come when you'll be blue, Your cheating heart will tell on you."
"Did you ever see a robin weep, When leaves begin to die. That means he's lost the will to live, I'm so lonesome, I could cry."

Crieky! And then there's whole albums of 'break-up madness.' Two classics are Nick Cave's 'Let Love In' -- "Love is always having to say you're sorry, And I am, from my head down to my shoes. I'm sorry that I'm always pissed, I'm sorry that I exist, And when I look into your eyes I can see you're sorry too" -- and Lou Reed's black and self-pitying 'Berlin' album, the recording of which was said to have driven everyone mad by its extremes of intensity, and from which come these gems:

UNCERTAIN: How do you think it feels
"How do you think it feels, To feel like a wolf and foxy? How do you think it feels, To always make love by proxy?"

QUESTIONING: Oh Jim
"Now you said that you love us, But you only make love to one of us, Oh Jim, how could you treat me this way, You know you broke my heart, Ever since you went away, When you're looking through the eyes of hate, Oh, oh, oh, oh."

IMMATURE: Caroline Says, I
"Caroline says that I'm just a toy, She wants a man, not just a boy, Oh, Caroline says, ooh Caroline says. Caroline says she can't help but be mean, Or cruel, or oh so it seems, Oh, Caroline says. Caroline says. She say she doesn't want a man who leans, Still she is my Germanic Queen."

BRUTAL: Caroline Says, II
"Caroline says - as she gets up from the floor, You can hit me all you want to, but I don't love you anymore."

HURTFUL: The Kids
"I am the Water Boy, the real game's not over here, But my heart is overflowin' anyway. I'm just a tired man, no words to say, But since she lost her daughter It's her eyes that fill with water, And I am much happier this way."

SUICIDAL: The Bed
"This is the place where she lay her head, When she went to bed at night. And this is the place our children were conceived, Candles lit the room brightly at night. And this is the place where she cut her wrists, That odd and fateful night..."

And finally, back again to WISTFUL: Sad Song
"My castle, kids and home, I thought she was Mary, Queen of Scots. I tried so very hard. Shows just how wrong you can be."

And then of course there's the female divorcee's karaoke favourite: I Will Survive, by Gloria Gaynor. And for the bloke with new-found freedom: Bring on the Nubiles, by The Stranglers.

And we haven't even touched opera! Where would we be without Pagliacci's Vesti la Giubba -- " Laugh, you clown, at your broken love. Laugh at the pain which poisons your heart" -- or the passionately optimistic denial of Madame Butterfly's Un Bel Di, Vedremo. And where would opera be without break-ups and reconciliations, and break-ups again!

But in the end, when all you can do is laugh or you'll cry, there's the truly, madly, deeply cheesy:
Breaking Up is Hard to Do, by The Partridge Family. 'Cos you really do have to laugh, don't you. Don't you?

RELATED: Music

A favourite NZ dozen

It's NZ Music Month and a few bloggers have already posted their worst NZ 'pop' songs -- naturally Tim Finn deservedly over-achieves on most lists -- so as I've no wish to follow the herd and I've already posted a 'ten-most-overrated' list, instead of a 'worst ten' here's a favourite dozen:

• Gun Hungry -- Luke Hurley
• Billy Bold -- Graham Brazier
• Gutter Black -- Hello Sailor
• Don't Catch Fire -- Toy Love
• Squeeze -- Toy Love
• Crush - Tall Dwarfs
• GMT -- Hello Sailor
• True Love -- Scavengers
• Taking the Weight Off -- Penknife Glides
• Not a Victim -- Chris Knox
• Saturday Night Stay at Home - Suburban Reptiles
• The Jinx - Swingers

Special mention, a few special non-pop NZ musical moments:

• Bailero, from Chants d'Auvergne (J.Canteloube)
  Performed by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and The English Chamber Orchestra, and perfectly used inlast year's superbly atmospheric film NZ film In My Father's Den. Beautiful.
• Donald McIntyre's humane Hans Sach from the classic Sydney performance of Wagner's Die Miestersinger von Nurnburg.
• And Simon O'Neill's electric performance in Parsifal earlier this year has been at least partially preserved with a live MP3 of Amfortas, die Wunde.

So what have I forgotten?
.
TAGS: Music, New_Zealand

Music to fill the hours with - and the home!

I've been filing again, or at least thinking about it. Filing my music collection to be precise. Have you ever noticed how when you're filing your records or CDs that those big lumps in your collection made up of people you really like tend to ruin your nicely-thought-out filing system? Or is it just me and mine.

Anyway, I've got an apartment full of music. Records, tapes, CDs - the place is swimming in 'em. Stuff of all types. I thought you might like to know what looms largest in the collection, so here they are in order of most to least, from all from all formats (incl. bootlegs and the like):

Lou Reed/Velvet Underground/John Cale (91), Richard Wagner (63), Bob Dylan (61), Duke Ellington (48), Ludwig van Beethoven (46), Mario Lanza (40), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (34), Guiseppe Verdi (31), Tom Waits (29), Giacomo Puccini (22), Beatles/Lennon/Harrison (21), Hello Sailor/Brazier/McCartney/Lyon (20), Sergei Rachmaninov - Nick Cave - Manic Street Preachers (all 18), Graham Parker - Christy Moore (16), Iggy Pop - Stranglers - Louis Armstrong - (15), Luciano Pavarotti (14), King Crimson/Robert Fripp (13), Rush - Toy Love/Tall Dwarves/Chris Knox (12), Anna Moffo - Miles Davis - Patti Smith (11), Nirvana - Eric Clapton - Leonard Cohen (10).

Hmmm. Perhaps it's time to get some saddled up and out the door.

TAGS: Music

Good People for NZ Music Month

In honour of New Zealand Music Month I've added three New Zealand musical friends to my 'Good People' Links down there on the sidebar-- and good people they all are.

Tenor Simon O'Neill is currently conquering the world. Most recently he's been understudying Placido Domingo in the Met's production of Wagner's 'Walkure' in New York. You can see him in the Kiri and Friends DVD from last year's Ayatollah Centre concert in Auckland with live-wire Helen Medlyn and Newmarket-based Opera Factory Chorus, and I've just discovered you can hear him next year in an NZSO Parsifal! Can't wait!

Soundtrack composer Marc Chesterman has composed music for Florian Habicht's films Woodenhead and Kaikohe Demolition, as well as collaborating in the improvisational trio Audible 3. Currently preparing to tour Europe with the Mau Dance company, I can confirm that Marc can produce "insanely cheerful" music as if he was born to it.

Hello Sailor are New Zealand's under-rated rock music legends. Variously considering themselves either a South Pacific Rolling Stones or a South Pacific Velvet Underground -- the latter well before such a tag was even fashionable -- at their best Hello Sailor sounded and sound like they can beat the world and it's brother. And quite apart from being a thoroughly decent chap, Sailor's Graham Brazier has written New Zealand's only real 'rebel song', Billy Bold. Graham's latest album 'East of Eden' comes highly recommended, as does fellow Sailor Dave McCartney's latest, on which 'Drunk With the View' finally gets recorded.

I heartily commend all the above to your eager attention.