Dwang me

A quote often used as a lazy slur on music criticism is that “writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” As they used to say in journalism school, this is one cliche that should be avoided like the plague.

I have most often seen the quote attributed to Frank Zappa. Others given the credit include Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs, Elvis Costello and even Thelonious Monk. After extensive research, Alan Scott finds that the quip first emerged from the mouth of US satirist Martin Mull. Another blogger, Mike Johnston, sought and received confirmation from Mull himself.

Walking the streets researching New Zealand’s popular music, including the venues at which it was played, I have often thought my recent book is as much about architecture as music. Buildings such as those that housed the Peter Pan and Dixieland Point Chevalier may be long gone, but some still hold on grimly: the St James on Queen St, the original Dixieland on Queen (now Real Groovy Records), the Crystal Palace on Mt Eden Road. In Wellington, the former Nimmo’s Building (now housing Wholly Bagels) on Willis Street glowers at the kitsch 1980s neighbourhood bully, the Majestic Centre, that obliterated its former dancing partner, the Majestic Cabaret.

Landmarks in New Zealand music

First in an occasional series

This building was the Auckland home of the National Broadcasting Service, on Durham Street West. It was it one of the country’s best examples of art deco, especially the fittings inside. But it also contained a grand temple of music making: the 1ZB Radio Theatre.

Here, twice a week, singers such as Mavis Rivers and Esme Stephens performed with big bands twice a week before a live audience. Bandleaders such as Julian Lee, Dale Alderton and Crombie Murdoch wrote new arrangements each week. While its heyday was in the 1940s and 1950s, the Radio Theatre was still playing host to live broadcasts in the late 1970s by bands such as Hello Sailor and Th’ Dudes.

Across the lane, when I first moved to Auckland, Record Warehouse was a hip retailer with a great line in New Zealand singles. In nearby Durham Lane, Benny Levin ran his music booking agency (in Roger Watkins’s Hostage to the Beat, there’s a great photo of the La De Das crossing Queen Street between the two locations). Zip through a few back alleys and you came to Rip It Up in Darby Street. 

Not even 50 years after Auckland’s Broadcasting House was built, it was declared a mausoleum and demolished (around the same time the nearby His Majesty’s Theatre was destroyed in the dead of night). The recent news that Abbey Road might be sold caused a flurry of outrage; in the States, the CBS radio theatre that hosted the Beatles’ first broadcast on the Ed Sullivan Show now hosts David Letterman. While the nation considers the benefits or otherwise of public broadcasting, we can hear a song from the Samoan woman whose talents were nurtured in the 1ZB Radio Theatre, before she was wooed to Hollywood and signed by Frank Sinatra.

5 x 5

1. Olympic Cleansing
As Beijing is left with the clean-up and the bill, the uglies can return and the city’s protest parks can once again fill with joyous folk going about their business, I was thinking of earlier Olympic protests. That image from the 1968 Mexico Olympics of the American athletes on the dais holding up Black Power salutes has been etched in my mind for 40 years. Tommie Smith and John Carlos had just won medals in the 200 metres, and made a statement, whereas this year’s winner made an exhibition. Then I ran into a Latin-American expert, who told me about the Tlatelolco Massacre, which took place in Mexico just days before the 1968 Olympics. Protests against the oppressive government ended up in 200-300 people getting shot. If this was on the NZBC news, it was after my bedtime. “The Olympics must go on,” declared IOC dictator Avery Brundage, “This had nothing to do with the Games.” Curious fashion facts, from the days of black and white TV: Smith and Carlos wore one black glove each, from the same pair. Part of the reason was they thought they’d have to shake hands with Brundage, who had worked hard to get a segregated South African team into the Games. And in Tlatelolco, the government sent in two militia groups: the regular army, and the president’s own Battalion Olympia, disguised as civilians. So the army would be able to spot the others mingling with the unarmed protestors, each member of the Battalion wore a single white glove and white sock. As the bullets started to fly, the Battalion shot a general, so the army then blitzed everyone in sight. The Battalion dropped its cover, crying out “Don’t shoot – we’re the Battalion!” Any ruthlessness in Beijing didn’t happen in front of the cameras.

2. Life is a Hurricane
Next week it is three years since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. The Independent interviews the editor of local paper the Times-Picayune about its impact on the paper, and what happens when the world moves on and you’re the only ones left dealing with the mess. “Imagine how newspapers in this country would have reacted if 160,000 people – about the population of Brighton – had been homeless for three years, forced to find lodging in distant towns or to survive in trailer parks.”

3. The Godfather of Soul
Jerry Wexler’s impact has been so vast – on popular music, and my own take on it – that I’ve been reluctant to get started on it. Luckily, there have been a couple of great blogs with terrific music links, the Adios Lounge and the B-Side. The key points have been well covered everywhere – Aretha, Muscle Shoals, Dusty in Memphis – but still two pieces that moved me most I read back in 2000. Alex Halberstadt’s profile in Salon is excellent, but best of all was Austin, Texas writer Raoul Hernandez’s funny, thorough piece about Wexler’s often ignored impact on country music. Wexler produced two albums for Willie Nelson – Shotgun Willie and Phases & Stages – that sold poorly but led to his breakthrough, Red-Headed Stranger. I still think Phases & Stages is Nelson’s best: he could still be bothered to write songs, and this concept album about a breakup (from the male and female points-of-view) was simple, brilliant, and heart-breaking. And it was produced in Muscle Shoals. (Both albums also have unforgettable opening lines: “Well it’s a Bloody Mary morning, she left me without warning, sometime in the night” … and “Shotgun Willie, sits around in his underwear …”). Yes, ‘I Never Loved a Man’ is mind-blowing, and Dusty in Memphis is masterly. But Aretha’s Young Gifted and Black is her masterpiece (here’s ‘Oh Me Oh My’), and Phases & Stages is Willie’s. A few years ago Marty Duda interviewed Wexler and his former Atlantic colleague Ahmet Ertegun for a National Radio series. In separate conversations, both these ageing dynamos queried Marty’s American accent and in wistful asides said it must be great to move to New Zealand: to get away from the rat race. And now both have gone. (Here's an NPR interview with Wexler.) In his Salon piece Halberstadt describes Wexler as “a musical innovator, a brilliant producer, a shrewd businessman, a master manipulator and a shameless carpetbagger”. Wexler was so dogmatic that his autobiography The Rhythm and The Blues even quoted others who had a different perspective on events. Sam Moore, formerly of Sam & Dave – who got left high and dry by Wexler – gives an artist’s perspective, and also comments on how the Scientologists prevented him from saying goodbye to his friend who wrote ‘Soul Man,’ Isaac Hayes.

4. Rainbow’s End
Harold Arlen’s classic ‘Stormy Weather’ is never far from my mind, especially this winter: songwriting perfection. Ted Barron at Boogie-Woogie Flu agrees; for a week or so he has just posted some wildly varying versions, including Arlen himself, Lena Horne, plus Memphis group the Reigning Sound’s garage-punk version from 2002. After that you’ll be looking for some more Arlen, but over the rainbow. So did Billy T James, and with the punchline of this clip he nails my nagging problem with Arlen’s other octave-leaping classic. (Includes cameo appearance by Max Cryer.)

5. Get Your Kicks
I recently had to give a talk on geography and music, a rich area. Distracting me from writing it was this addictive musical geographer’s toy from The Word. And afterwards I came across this 50 Songs for 50 States project by the Boston Phoenix. Many of the classics are better than you’d predict, and there’s a very high hit rate for recent visitations. By comparison, the Guardian’s Laura Barton takes a road to nowhere.