In his own write

Each year as New Zealand Music Month comes round, it feels good to see the bulls-eye T-shirt so widespread on our streets. But May isn’t the right month to celebrate New Zealand music: it should be June. It was in June 1977 that Rip It Up first appeared, and more than any other factor it changed the way New Zealanders perceive their own music.

Rip It Up only survived because of the tenacious, stubborn Murray Cammick, who founded it with his friend Alastair Dougal. Music journalism in print has never created a hit record – reading about music doesn’t make thousands beat a path to their store – but the impact of Rip It Up has been slow-burning and effective.

While persuading the public that its music was worthwhile, Rip It Up has also inspired many to choose journalism or photography or graphic design as a career. That comes down to the astute judgement of Cammick. Whenever any former staffers meet, we agree on one thing: Murray is the smartest editor we have ever worked for.

In 1997 he asked me to mark Rip It Up’s 20th anniversary with an essay about the magazine and the world from which it emerged. A year later, the Cammick era would be over. Under a corporate publisher Rip It Up now enters its 32nd year looking flash, and with Real Groove and NZ Musician serving different audiences, the New Zealand music scene is well covered. But Trevor Reekie spoke for many when he said in NZ Musician, “Murray Cammick is a legend in New Zealand music and it’s seriously debatable if the local industry would be where it is without his outstanding contribution over the years.”

The Act We’ve Known For All These Years

Rip It Up, 1977-1997

When I first saw Rip It Up I was in journalism school; Rod Bryant, whose brother sang in Rough Justice, was a tutor. Leafing through #2 – the first issue to reach Wellington – with Rod, we both thought the same thing. He said it: “How do they do it? Let’s hope they keep it up.” I was an avid reader for five years before I walked in the door and offered to do some writing. (I felt I needed to do my homework first – after all, the Rip It Up writers seemed to have.)

Since its debut in June, 1977, Rip It Up has become another part of New Zealand life we are all in danger of taking for granted. But although I’ve been a part of it – as a reader or writer – for all that time, I still get that same feeling when I open up each issue.

In an interview for Rip It Up’s fifth anniversary in 1982, Split Enz’s Eddie Rayner was asked what a band needed to succeed. “Longevity,” he replied. It went unsaid that longevity came from reliability, and stamina. Rayner could have been talking about Rip It Up just as much as his band. The magazine discreetly celebrated its birthday by adding five small candles to the cover of issue number 60.

It’s now 20 years since Rip It Up first appeared, with a photo of the Commodores on the cover and the words FREE ROCK PAPER emblazoned larger than its logo. From the moment anybody first saw the magazine – or rather, its title – they remembered it.

At first, it was the name. The shock tactic worked. The title grabbed your eye, while you grabbed for a copy. In 1977, when most music magazines were fuelled by earnestness, Rip It Up suggested a sense of urgency, of anarchy – even a sense of humour. It was like a rallying cry for the iconoclastic music movement exploding in England at that very moment. Only its editors realised the title’s connection with the Little Richard hit (from the first time pop music had been turned on its head). While the editors harboured secret aspirations to that kind of credibility – and longevity? – the magazine could shelter behind the self-deprecating pun of its title.

It suited the excitement and disposability of the contents: popular culture. That was a term no one used then – and even if they had, there were few outlets in New Zealand in which to use it. Personal computers had only just been invented, so there wasn’t a plethora of street mags written by the incoherent for the illiterate. Student papers were full of politics, urging their readers to mobilise for moratoriums. Student radio wasn’t an industry, but seemed like amateur clubs for spotty physics students to play their prog rock.

Out in the “real” world, commercial radio was dominated by the state, whose mono ZM rock stations featured bland pop and LA-wannabe deejays (okay, that hasn’t changed). We weren’t allowed FM radio for five more years (and then squandered the medium). Television was restricted to two channels, with two music shows. Ready to Roll had a great simple concept: the Top 10 in prime time. Lots of Leo Sayer and Abba (who weren’t hip the first time round). The new Radio With Pictures was then just 45 minutes of cheap videos and live clips, without a host. If you couldn’t afford overseas papers such as Rolling Stone ($1.10) or NME (30 cents), for credible comment there were only isolated columnists: Phil Gifford in Auckland, Rob White in Christchurch, Roy Colbert in Dunedin and Gordon Campbell in the Listener.

Few outside Auckland got to see Rip It Up’s precursor from the mid-70s, the excellent Hot Licks (whose name also neatly captured its era). After 27 issues Hot Licks had dissolved, a victim not of its decision to add a cover price of 40 cents, but of music industry politics (its main backer, the Direction Records retail chain, antagonised the main advertisers – record companies – when it started to import records).

But Rip It Up was an independent paper, run by two young enthusiasts, Murray Cammick and Alastair Dougal. At first, the unsophisticated record industry seemed to regard it as a fanzine (though a name for that genre had yet to take hold, either). But when they read the reviews and articles, they realised that this was worth taking seriously. After all, the readers were – and the reviewers weren’t pulling their punches. An early skirmish was when Mike Chunn rubbished Paul McCartney’s London Town, which to EMI was like … blasphemy.

But after a few months John McCready of CBS called Cammick into his office, and booked the back cover and page three for regular ads. He wasn’t doing it because he was hip, or saw Rip It Up as a worthy cause. As the man who developed the massively successful Solid Gold Hits series, and later revolutionised programming at Radio Hauraki and TVNZ, McCready understood marketing and media. Eventually, most of the record companies came on board as a way to reach music fans. They learnt to live with the blunt-but-informed reviews – and learnt the value of securing exclusive interviews with their artists.

Now, with pop culture everywhere – shows like Entertainment This Week all over television, magazines like Who Weekly dominating the newsstands, wall-to-wall video shows, PR image makers, gossip as journalism, hype and hard-sell everywhere – it is reliable reviews which give a magazine the trust and respect of its readership. As the cantankerous American composer and critic Virgil Thomson wrote, “Music criticism may be unnecessary. It is certainly inefficient. But it is the only antidote we have to paid publicity.”

But the quality of the rest of the magazine was seldom acknowledged. Without searching through my archives I can name some moments to treasure: Cammick’s ordeal with Johnny Cougar, before he became Mellencamp (“You wouldn’t f***ing know good f***ing music if it bit you on the f***ing dick”), Alastair Dougal touring with Graham Parker, Jeremy Templer on Hello Sailor’s debauched stay in LA, Russell Brown on the road, Cammick’s punky layouts, Colin Wilson’s world-class illustrations, Kerry Brown’s colour (!) portraits, the campaign against heavy-handed police in pubs, Russell Brown’s sober, thorough coverage of the Aotea Square riot (which outclassed every other publication), Donna Yuzwalk’s subversion of rock as a boy’s club and John Russell’s subversion of the asinine “phoner”.

The other factor that made Rip It Up different from the beginning was its coverage of local music. When the magazine began, no other medium – not even student radio – and few New Zealanders took their own musicians seriously. While Rip It Up’s reviewers could be as cutting as they were enthusiastic, they were usually well informed, many of the writers being musicians themselves. (Even the 70s bandleader who threatened the editor with violence – though he was a hippy rather than a punk – would probably now admit his 15-minute solos were indulgent.)

Any popular culture magazine needs to reflect its era and environment. The do-it-yourself ethic that emerged with punk was also the spirit of Rip It Up, and the spirit which later inspired independent record mavericks such as Propeller and Flying Nun. If Rip It Up’s determination to be a “free rock paper!” was an indication that it was launched in the idealistic 70s, the need to cover its costs with a price tag is a reflection of the revolutionary shifts that have happened in New Zealand society in the 90s. We now have pay-to-watch TV, mobile phones, wall-to-wall commercial radio, glossy magazines, professional rugby – and records are no longer $5.75 (or called records). It may surprise some that Rip It Up’s readership stayed the same after a price went on the cover in 1994. But I think that over the last two decades the magazine has earned – and retained – the loyalty of its readers. That’s what has given it longevity.

*

Here is Murray interviewed by Karyn Hay in 1985, when Radio With Pictures was at its peak.

Haere Ra

Sam Freedman, New Zealand’s Irving Berlin, passed away this week, aged 96. But he shared a lot of aspects with Berlin apart from reaching a great age and being a Russian-Jewish immigrant. Totally self taught, Freedman was New Zealand’s pioneering popular songwriter in the modern sense. Before him, people had written songs that spread by word of mouth or public performance, such as Henare Waitoa and Tuini Ngawai. Freedman wrote for the pop music industry, such as it was in the 1940s and 1950s. And they were hits for singers such as Daphne Walker.

He wrote more than 300 songs, among them ‘Haere Mai (Everything is Ka Pai)’ recently movingly revived for an airline advertisement, and ‘When My Wahine Does the Poi’ (the title is half the battle, Sammy Cahn might say). Walker had the hit version of ‘Haere Mai’ - she is pictured here on the sheet music - and other musicians who recorded it include Peter Posa and Johnny Cooper.

Freedman’s peers and contemporaries were Ruru Karaitiana (‘Blue Smoke’) and Ken Avery (‘Paekakariki’ and ‘Tea at Te Kuiti’). Although many people had written songs about New Zealand before, they didn't really reach the public (‘Waiata Poi’ was no ‘Haere Mai’). Together this trio brought popular songs about New Zealand into New Zealand homes.

Here is Eddie O’Strange’s tribute to Freedman, and a link to the ‘Haere Mai’ page on John Archer’s terrific New Zealand Folksong site. It even includes sheet music.

Texas Tea

From the Evening Post, 1 October 1914:

From Auto-Trader (NZ), 20 March 2008

The SUV debate – debunking the myths...

“The gas-guzzler label is a red herring. Because SUVs are generally larger vehicles, generally heavier and generally possessing unimpressive aerodynamics, they’re bound to use more fuel than an economical car.” (continues)

His master's voice

Sending Coldplay in as the cavalry may not be the answer required for EMI’s woes, but I’m no auditor looking at the global balance sheets. EMI NZ is about to turn into a branch office of Australia, with only sales reps here. Being the second-cousin to Tasmania has never benefited any New Zealand operation that has found itself answering to Sydney. Staff start to enjoy leaving work around 5.00pm, knowing it frustrates those in head office who want to make bullying phone calls. Now we have mobile phones of course, though there are so many places over here in the bush where the coverage is poor.

When EMI first started in New Zealand, it was called HMV, and mobile phones were pigeons. Among the products HMV was assembling here before the war were toasters, radios, radiograms, irons and even bicycles. All this happened at their Wakefield Street premises in Wellington, a block away from Te Papa. And in the 1950s, if you wanted a new radio put in your car, HMV was the place to go. (There is a great array of photos showing behind-the-scenes 1950s action at HMV at the National Library’s excellent Timeframes site.)

HMV formed its New Zealand branch in 1926, emerging out of a Wellington-based firm called EJ Hyams who since 1910 had been distributing HMV recordings and gramophones here. When Hyams retired in 1931, HMV in England bought all the shares, and the accountant Alfred Wyness became the managing director.

Wyness ran a tight ship, taking all instructions from the UK, and when he retired in 1951 he was succeeded by his son AJ (insert Sopranos joke here). The Wyness dynasty lasted until February 1973, when AJ retired; Shona Laing’s ‘1905’ was in the Top 10, but through Phonogram.

HMV's cricket club, Wellington, 1938. Managing director Alfred Wyness is, of course, the man in the suit.

Curiously, HMV was involved in the first music recording here to be released on disc. In 1927 Parlophone of Australia came over to record Dean Waretini (senior) and Ano Hato, using a mobile unit brought over for the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York (the parents of the current Queen). The label above is of one of those early Ano Hato recordings, which were pressed in Australia.

But after that, HMV did nothing to nurture New Zealand music until the 1950s. They didn’t need to: they dominated distribution here so effectively that in the late 1930s, HMV could claim that every record played on radio in New Zealand was released through HMV. If your image of the multi-national record executive is from the 1970s – business trips to Burbank, long lunches, tennis, sessions in the spa – it may be hard to comprehend the Wyness approach.

The company may have enjoyed its monopoly to the fullest, and taken ruthless steps to maintain it, but Wyness was staunchly religious. In the 1950s his son came into the Wakefield Street studio on a Sunday to find a recording session was booked. A grand piano had been hired, transported and tuned. Musicians were waiting. No matter; it was a Sunday: the session was cancelled.

1944: HMV staff assemble army radio sets for the war in the Pacific.

During the Second World War, HMV turned its production plant over to defence needs. They changed from producing fridges and gramophones to assembling army equipment. HMV didn’t set up an Auckland office until 1946, and the man in charge of it had been working for the firm since 1919. Because of import restrictions, a pressing factory was set up in Kilbirnie in 1949, using masters from overseas. The first New Zealand record pressed was Les Wilson singing ‘The Yodelling Cowboy’ in 1953. This was four years after ‘Blue Smoke’ came out on Tanza, HMV’s new local rival (Les’s brother Cole was in the Tumbleweeds, then Tanza’s top sellers).

The departure of EMI NZ’s managing director later this month mirrors what is happening overseas as the company’s new global owner – Terra Firma, the investment vehicle of merchant banker Guy Hands – looks for a new way to make money out of recordings. The end of June will also see the departure of the president of EMI’s legendary US label Capitol, and perhaps Virgin’s president soon after.

Left: possibly the last managing director of EMI (NZ), in a former life.

Neither will be replaced; the latest idea is to have a “president of A&R” overseeing all EMI’s labels. It will be interesting to see which big overseas names will remain with EMI for the local reps to sell, once their contracts come up for renewal. Here on the other side of the music galaxy, New Zealand acts hoping to sell their music don’t have to look far for their new business model: Fat Freddy’s Drop.

Speaking of New Zealand music, the foreign-owned C4 channel is currently showing the taxpayer-funded TVNZ how to bring it to our screens. The 100 magic moments show Rock the Nation has been excellent: well-researched, wide ranging and full of surprises. During the series they have been promoting Making Tracks, of which already three episodes have screened. I’m annoyed I wasn’t watching from the start. It’s a brilliant, simple idea – taking New Zealand hits overseas for other cultures to reinterpret – but probably far more complex to achieve than it looks. The hyperactive host Nick Dwyer is perfect for it; he (lovingly) describes himself as a “cheeky scamp” and I’m sure there is always a future for him endorsing Ritalin. It was very impressive watching him wow dancers in India with his “old-school techno” moves on the dance-floor, and of course the former New Zealander who became Miss India was also very telegenic. If ever NZ On Air money has been well spent on music, it’s with this show.