The 3d's | 26th August 2005

..............................THE BEAUTY OF THE BEAST
........................................(in glorious 3D)

I was listening to a song the other night when I experienced again that moment of excitement, the frisson that a great rock song can give you. I don’t think the moment has a name. But luckily my merry band of friends have given it one (like we did with many other things). The song had “beast” OR the song gave me “the beast”. That beast, the spark you can get from a great song, seems to ignite some sort of primitive passions and can turn into an all-consuming fire.
You are once again a teenager and invincible.
and it makes you feel like - driving fast in your car, skulling a beer, hell! skulling a whisky - even incorrectly filling in your tax form.
The song I was listening to was “Serve the Servants” by Nirvana. We were getting ready to go out and I had an itunes hit list playing as an accompaniment.
What a great mood it placed me in.
Ironically the song contains the line.
"Teenage angst has paid off well / Now I'm bored and old"
because for a while there I was far more the angsty teen than the bored old guy with the tweed jacket and those funny bits of leather on the elbows.
Punk rock has provided me with “the beast” more than any other music form.
Moments of frisson so papable you could slice them up and feed them to the dog, from bands like the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Buzzcocks. Ah… Those were the days. No wonder we acted like maniacs, if that was our soundtrack. The godfather of punk too – Iggy. He is beastmaster general and his songs still get me.
Banning “Loose”, “No Fun” or “Gimme Danger“ etc from the car when I‘m driving after junior is born might be a very good idea.

I never really went crazy about Nirvana when they first emerged although I remember watching the video for “Smells like Teen Spirit “ and knowing something was Up. I just don’t jump on bandwagons very well when they come through. I think I am too cynical for that. My first instinct if everybody tells me something is good is “Ok well see”. Reticence, caution or a reluctance to trust others judgement, I dont know why. I had the same reaction to the Smiths as well. In both cases once the bandwagon was well in gone and in fact on the scrap heap - I was ready for the ride. In both of those cases they became some of my favourite bands.
Five years after the fact I’m like
“have you heard Nevermind?.. oh-my-god!”
to weary/wary friends, who knew what was about to come.
The minor tragedy is that when NIRVANA came to New Zealand I met them and saw them live from the side of the stage and didn’t realize I was witnessing rock history or that I would end up regarding them as, not only a truly great rock band but the LAST truly great rock band.
I knew they were good. I just didn’t know they were THAT good - my own obsession being a few years away.
I was at the Nirvana concert because my good friends, the 3d’s, were the support band. I was Dave Mitchell, one of the guitarists, roadie which was a fairly terrifying prospect.
Terrifying mostly because I really didn’t want to ACTUALLY be a roadie. I didn’t want to run out on stage and do anything. I just wanted a free ticket to the gig and a chance to help them finish off their rider. And the chances I would have to do something were quite high because of the way Dave approached his instrument.

To those who haven't seen him play perhaps I should explain.
If, when you think of a person playing guitar, you imagine someone like Wes Montgomery sitting passively on a chair caressing his instrument with the tenderness with which you would treat a small furry animal you are miles away from Dave Mitchell’s “style”. He attacks the guitar and though there are long segments of relative calm they are punctuated by brief periods of frenzied ugliness. He looks like someone trying to rip a small bird to pieces with his barehands.
After the sort of onslaught he subjects the thing to, it’s a wonder there is a guitar left. And sometimes there isn’t. During his recent performance in Dunedin he got so excited he smashed the guitar up. Unfortunately it was not his guitar. Some poor fool lent him their instrument. And I imagine him watching Dave saying ..
“yeah! Go for it man! Yeah Dave! Whoooo!”
Followed by the sounds of smashing etc.. then..
“No, No, no! noooo.. my guitar … lord no..”
After a good gig, sometimes Dave's glasses were so steamed up he could barely see to exit the stage. He would just have to follow the smell of whisky. The stage itself could look like a slaughterhouse. Blood everywhere.
Another job for Daves roadie can be simply FINDING the guitar after gig because he can often just throw it away once he’s finished abusing it.

The 3d’s were “the little band that could” in my New Zealand music life. They could have gone all the way. Not to mainstream success but certainly to the sort of success in the “alternative” sub-market that I respected. They could have actually MADE some money. They had some influencial fans - Sonic Youth/Pavement/Guided by Voices etc ...and they were my mates.

The Nirvana gig went ok but onstage Nirvana were so incredibly loud they made the 3d’s sound like a wind up toy. I was almost physically sick they were so loud. My body felt like it was being punched. We met them too, and they were very nice boys. Dave Grohl and his bird watched the 3d’s from the side of the stage with me and loved it.
Yay! I think back and realise it was just as well I didn’t rate them as I do know, because I would have been all gushy and that’s awful.

The only other time I appeared on stage or side-stage in my brief career as guitar roadie was when the 3d’s played at Western Springs with U2. This was quite early on and as the 3d's had little experience of a venue of this size, the nerve quotient was high. Very high actually and I amused myself on the way to Western Springs in the van by teasing the most fraught of them, drummer Dominic, mercilessly. He was beyond nervous, petrified , is a more apt description. His complexion was a shade of green I had never seen before or since. He looked like he wanted to die. It was great.

BIG GREEN MAN

In the end all I had to do was grin and Dom would say..
“fuck off mate”

When we travelled in the van down the bullock track hill beside the stadium Dominic couldn’t even look at the venue.
Luckily, I was there to tell him what was going on..
“ It’s filling up now.. boy”
followed by a whistle.
“Wow “ I said helpfully “this is the same stage David Bowie was on.. remember..”
“Imagine… 30,000 people.. that’s like a normal gig you guys play but times… oh let me see then… 70.. “
Silence. Stony silence.
“I sure wouldn’t want to make a mistake.. Not in front of that big a crowd…”
Right about this time there was probably a minor amount of physical violence directed my way and I was told my short career as a guitar roadie would be over after today.
We got down and backstage and were shown our caravan. We had a few beers and pretty soon everyone in the band started to relax a bit. Then something awful happened. I started to get nervous.
Dominic picked up on it immediately.
“You alright mate. You look a bit peeky”
“have something to eat. You need your strength. After all you wouldn’t want to run on stage in front of ALL THOSE PEOPLE and trip up or anything.. eh”
I looked at Dave. He seemed peaceful enough.
“Dave “ I said “be kind to your guitar tonight”
“I’m feeling pretty pissed off actually .and I think I’ll take it out on….hemmm let me see… yes… my guitar will do nicely”
Then just before they were about to go on Dave said
“I don’t know if I turned on my tuner”
Me “just turn it on when you go on”
“I dont think so. I need you to go and do it. It’s a bit tricky”
I thought he was joking.
Me - “No way” and “Why do I have to do it?”
All of the band together “ Because you are Dave’s roadie”
Bastard. I knew they were right.
The stadium wasn’t full but there were a lot of people there.
When I ran out on to the stage to check the tuner I made two mistakes. I forgot to run in the roadie half stooping gait, aIso I had failed to wear the international roadies uniform of a black product T-shirt with a bunch of keys hanging of my belt. As a consequence the crowd didn’t know I was a roadie and rose as one and cheering as I came out, thinking I was the band. As soon as they realsied I was me there ahhhh turned to oooooooohh and the sat back down again. I was pretty pleased with my work. I have disappointed a few people in my time but never 20,000 punters at once.

The 3d’s played without mishap and Dave failed to trouble a single string or small bird throughout.

There is another story to relate from the U2 concert.
After the playing and the gratuitous opening and consuming of beer and wine afterwards, we were hungry. Dom and I went off and stuck our heads in the support bands tent. Club sandwiches and what we in New Zealand laughingly call "celebrities". .. I dont think so.
Emboldened by the brief time onstage, Dom as crowd pleaser, me as a massive disappointment, we decided to eat in the U2 tent. Adam was there. He told Dom he enjoyed the concert. We selected some crayfish or oysters or maybe it was irish stew I can’t remember and noticed some official type was watching us. The food was ok but it was boring there so we went back to our festive caravan.
A while later someone poked their head into the caravan and said the tour manager was not going to pay the 3d’s because someone had broken the rules, eating in the special U2 enclosure.
“who the hell could that have been?”
I muttered under my breath as I shimmied out the caravan window.
To cut a long story short.
Bono, or Saint Bono as he should be rightly known, found out about the bullshit ..
“I wont be havin’ that at all ..at all… at all.. “ he allegedly drawled in pidgin irish…
He sent over a bottle of bubbly and DOUBLED the 3d’s fee for the gig.
What a guy. And if I ever become Mayor, the streets wont have no name.. They will be called Bono Ave. or similar
One of the best gigs the 3d's played and the time they made me the most proud was when they performed at the Big day Out in 1996. The promoter, Doug Hood had somehow scheduled the 3d's to play last on the big stage. I dont know how he did It - trickery, skullduggery, or maybe he just asked the organisers..regardless - The 3d's were sort-of head lining and playing AFTER - the Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Nick Cave and The Breeders. Soundgarden were on before them and before they finished their long winded pretentious writhing many people in the crowd had crossed to the 3d's side of the stage. Some began chanting for them. I couldn't believe it. The band had just returned from a tour of the states. I had seen them play before they left, which was ok. But there is nothing like touring to hone a bands skills and on that night they were magnificent. They were tight. They were loose. They were powerful and they were my buddies. Watching them perform I could scarcely believe I had once had the priviledge of underwhelming the crowd before they graced the stage with their 3 dimensional asses.
That night I experienced more frisson and "beast" than I knew what the hell to do with. Glorious.

Our Dave | 19th August 2005

.................................THE BIG MAN

I spent most of this week wallowing in the memory of David Lange. Given the level of some of the coverage, both in volume and quality, many of you are probably over it. But I feel I have to talk about it even if it is just to offer overseas readers some of the best bits from the stuff I have read/heard/seen from all sorts of media. Besides, I just really want to. I really loved that big guy, I hadn’t realised how much until it became clear he was on his way out. So forgive me if this post is not as funny as it sometimes is but my sense of humour is at half-mast, out of respect don’t-ya-know.
Mr Lange, as he did in life, can provide some humour of his own:
Best offhand one liner (one worder actually)-
Journalist to Lange in fast moving ministerial scrum
“Prime Minister can we have a brief word?”
“Wombat”
The value to him, of the humour and the joy of defeating an opponent with his frightening brain cannot be underestimated. A witty interjection at a raucous union meeting provided the moment he decided to enter politics. Similarly his first nomination to the Mangere seat was assisted by a joke. Lange was the last of 16 nominees to speak. Unless they were all amazing speakers it would have been an ordeal for the crowd, so, by the time he reached the stage the audience were bored. Lange was a huge man at this time. Richard Prebble has said in the past week that he was the biggest man he (or most people) had ever seen. 28 stones of socially compassionate Methodist lawyer, or this many sacks of spuds. .....

Anyway, when he got up to speak he was introduced as “ the person who has had the longest wait of the evening”
Lange replied “With respect Sir. I think the greatest weight too”.
Lange was nominated and the rest, as they say, is history.

I question the quality of some of the press coverage this week because while it has been largely affectionate and while it would be unfair to say they have resorted too easily to ‘glib platitudes’ (see what I have done there? Slagged them and defended them at the same time) there have been certain clichés that I find hard to accept. It's like people hear these things so many times they become fact. Or that journalists resort to them because they haven’t got any ideas of their own. David Lange the “loner”, for instance. If he was such a loner how come he seems to have so many friggin friends? And I simply don’t buy this attempt to portray Lange as a sort tragic King Lear figure, shuffling lonely and misunderstood through the corridors of power, still basically the fat boy who using humour to survive. I’ve read the book and I think he’s more fun than that. As far as Shakespeare characters go I would think of him more as Falstaff than Lear. He liked having fun. He enjoyed the debates, the stouches and delighted in the line well delivered. You can see on the footage of the Oxford debate when he delivers the famous “uranium” line that he knows it's a good one and is relishing the moment.
There was something of the boy in him too. He loved the opportunity to do some motor-racing and when he was asked what he would miss about being Prime Minister he said “The helicopter rides”.
I don’t think he was joking.
The most oft repeated cliché though is that he was “Flawed”.
Who isn’t? Look at his contemporaries –Thatcher, Bob Hawke… hello. He’s the most normal person among them. If you want to find a truly "flawed" character look no further than Lange's predecessor, Sir Robert Muldoon.

David Lange wouldn’t have existed in the way he did without Muldoon. He was a gift to Lange. And there is a sense of karma and irony in the fact that Muldoon's extremely nasty attack on the previous member for Mangere, Colin Moyle led to Lange coming into Parliament. The whole period leading to the election of the fourth Labour government is one of high drama and it’s worth going through it because it leads to handing Rodger Douglas so much leeway and to our hero’s eventual demise in 1989.

It unfolded as follows:
Marilyn Waring crosses the house to vote against the government on the Nuclear Free Bill. Later on, Muldoon retires to his room for, oh I don’t know, maybe 40 whiskies to emerge florid faced, wild eyed, mono-dimpled and unsteady on his feet to make the famous announcement that he cannot govern and will dissolve the government.......probably with his own breath.
In an act which can be described as a massive, ego driven tantrum he has literally “thrown his dummy out of the cot” big time.
In his book Lange describes it “There was never a night like it in all the time I was in politics. The air was electric. I could hardly believe it. Muldoon had thrown away his government”.
More drama was to follow. On the Sunday six days before the election Lange and Muldoon appeared on television in a head-to-head debate. Muldoon had for years dominated and bullied both opponents and journalists but now he had met his match. The debate did not go that well for Muldoon and near the end of the debate Lange cheekily told him “don’t worry we’ll find something for you to do after the election”. Muldoon's bizarre, slowly drawled reply “I love you Mr Lange”.
Fantastic! Can you imagine anything like that happening now? I – don’t – think – so. The most dynamic character in current debate is the worm.
If Muldoon and National had any chance it was gone with that performance. Legend has it Muldoon went back to Vogel House after the debate and ripped out his favourite lillies because he knew he was done.
Labour won the election but Muldoon’s childish behaviour had not finished. His next trick was to refuse to hand over financial power in a move resembling that old standby for the petulant 10 year old – “If I can’t be captain you can't use my ball”.
On the night of the election win Muldoon rang Lange and said “Congratulations Mr Lange...(followed by) ...I’ve got some bad news in the morning”. Click.
The economy was on the brink of ruin. We were about to become a third world economy, like Albania but with less albinos. They even rang diplomats in foreign embassies to ask how much money they could book up on their credit cards to keep them going. But instead of helping the new govenment Muldoon stalled in handing over the reigns.
When he did, what Langes government received from Muldoon was a something of a hospital pass. This meant that radical measures were called for just to survive. Step forward Sir Roger Douglas. If the country had not been in such poor shape, I don’t believe Douglas would have been allowed to go so far, which of course led ultimately to Lange’s political downfall and resignation.
The following from his valedictory speech:
"Winston Peters can't be with us today. He was unavoidably detained by a full length mirror"

Lange says in his book the highlight of his political career was the Oxford debate and that will of course provide his most lasting legacy.
I read it online and a more compelling and well argued stand advocating an end to the Nuclear Madness I would like to see. (It can now be heard here thanks to Hard News) But the stuff in the book I most liked were the things in between the major incidents that fill in the gaps to show the person he really was. His love of India. His “what a wonderful world” epiphany floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The stuff about growing up in Otahuhu and South Auckland. He was so grounded in the place, born there, raised there, he retired to Mangere Bridge and died in Middlemore Hospital less than a Kilometre from the family home where he grew up.

Finally, getting back to the journalists' coverage, that I would never call shallow and lazy. The most troubling line written about David Lange this week comes from John Armstrong in The New Zealand Herald who said
“He was variously admired and detested. He was never really loved“.
Oh really John, that would be why so many tears have been shed this week by so many New Zealanders.
And while much has been made this week of his mistakes, the debate, his wit and his weight. I think outweighing all those things and overshadowing his gargantuan intellect was the massive size of the guy's heart.

Goodbye good boy.

PS - The saddest thing about David Lange is how he was wasted in public life in his later years and the idea he struggled to make a living. It’s crazy. So go out and buy the bloody book. It’s a great read and presumably the money will go to bring up his little girl Edith who is only 9.
(No, you can't borrow my copy)

Food Nut | 12th August 2005

........................INSTANT KARMA EXOTIC FOODS


My assertion that the image of Helen Clark barreling down the highway won’t do her any harm has been reinforced several times this week in the media: Murray Deaker saying, basically “Good on her I didn’t think she had it in her” and “she needs a helicopter” before descending into a “political correctness has gone mad” (what again? It must be clinically insane by now) rant ..
While Russell Brown in Hard News imagines her cracking open a Lion Red in the back seat of her car.
Clark has a rather dour image as a workaholic, autocrat so maybe this may prove a devine Hugh Grant “foppish/staid image Begone!” moment.

A link from Hard News to the Noelle McCarthy interview with Winston Peters is worth checking out. She gives him a good seeing to, which is rare, because the press spend so much time getting pissed with him in the green room and at various haunts around Wellington they are unable to appraise him without being seduced by his apparent charm.
“Oh Winston..” they sigh.. Coyly..
as he spuriously assassinates the good character of whole swathes of our community.
The truth is he is a bully who picks on the weak and ignorant. I’m not talking here about the Asians but about the oldies who are his basic support group. Many of them, would never go near an immigrant or an Asian and if you asked them:
“Have you ever been to Yum Char?”
They would say..
“Where’s that love. The south island? No. I’ve never liked it there.. makes my lumbago flare up something awful..”
With dentures rattling and breath heavy with the stench of strong tea….

Yet, Peters convinces them we are in a New Zealand overrun by triads and Al Queda members.
Which is garbage and I would wager the Chinese community in particular, are one of the most law abiding in the country. Their main crimes are - being over achieving girly-swats who dominate the dux awards, rugby ineptitude and a parallel parking ability way, way below the national average - and that’s not going to hurt anyone.

“Never trust a double breasted, whisky soaked midget”

Radio B’s McCarthy is a potential star though and if I were a TV exec I would be signing her up now-ish.

A few weeks ago, after concerted prompting from from friends, I finally visited the Khyber Spice Traders shop in Sandringham. It’s a place filled with the sort of foreigners who would have Winston’s ignorant and elderly scurrying home, thinking of the blitz, to make a one egg chocolate sponge.
But for me it is a sort of weird food heaven. Wonderful Indian filled soft breads and the best Turkish delight in well… Sandringham, at least.
I would cite this shop alone as a reason we need more immigrants.

I have realized over the years that I not only love food, I love discovering food as well. I adore the exotic nature of foreign food. There is something simply delicious, even in the act of buying something from a weird stall on a fetid smelling side street in Asia.
Mind you, I wont eat everything, but almost.
I would never eat uncooked hector dolphin.
But… if it was seared and served on a bed of rocket and cherry tomatoes … well...

Bloody good eating

I’m joking of course. But what is true is that in my food tastes and appreciation I am the polar opposite of that great stereotype - The English Food Coward.
As anyone who as traveled through Europe will know many English seem to have a fear of food unless it falls into certain clearly defined food groups, basically: chips, eggs, steak and pies. Outside that exclusive club, food is dismissed as “foreign muck” and the whole vegetable sub-continent really doesn’t get a look in.
Curiously, history even confirms this pattern.
I once read a history text where the Romans talked of arriving in England in the middle Ages or the old ages (let’s just say it was a very long time ago) and they spoke of the English expression of distaste for food, even then.
“The locals are a squat in stature and instinctively distrust what we try to to feed them”
Presumably the Italians sat around, very well dressed, with Veal Parmigiana and Asparagus .. and the English sidled up, looked at the food with a high degree of reticence and then said
“nah …I don’t fancy that”
and scuttled off to the safety of a bowl of gruel.

In more recent times..I was once on holiday on the Greek island of Corfu, which is always bursting with the English. So much so that there are Union Jacks everywhere over food outlets so that the Englander can know that they serve the above allotted food.

My girlfriend and I went for dinner at a small Greek restaurant and to my delight a large Eastender family settled into the table next to us.

My “I cant wait till they order”
was given a quick “wanker”
from my then partner. Followed by ..
“you cant say what people will do. They might order moussaka”
“Moussaka my arse” (in my best Ricky Tomlinson)

Eventually the Dad in the group said (imagine the voice of Harold Steptoe talking to Pauline from Eastenders)..
“I don’t like none of this…”
Mum “No …it’s rubbish..”
Dad “ Swordfish Steaks.. bleedin’ ek”
Mum “hope they take the bloody swords aaart”
Dad “No. Bollocks. I’m gonna get steak, eggs and chips..”
Mum “yes.. dad. I’ll get that as well”
Eventually the ENTIRE table ordered the same thing so it was like ..
“12 steak, eggs and Chips, please Spiro’s”

Fantastic.. I could barely contain my glee..A living cliche. I really couldn’t have scripted it better.(What about having a couple of gay dutchmen walking in smoking a joint? -ed)
The satisfying caveat to that story (for you anyway) is that, with a sense of awful righteousness we ordered the swordfish steak, which were like two jandals soaked in sardine juice from the previously mentioned middle-ages. Bloody awful. I spent the entire dinner forlornly observing the pommies enjoying a bloody good feed of that old standard - Steak, Eggs and Chips.
In the words of that other Winston (No. not THAT one) –
John WinstonLennon – “Instant Karma’s gonna get you”.
If the food doesn’t get you first, I suppose.
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