CHOICE WRITERS' 1990

Rip It Up, Issue 162, 1 January 1991, Page 14

CHOICE WRITERS' 1990

DONNA YUZWALK UPPERS FAVE MOVIE MAKER: David Lynch. FAVE BOOK: Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by R. Persig. FAVE PHILOSOPHER: Henry Rollins. FAVE POP ICON: Madonna (the female Buddha). FAVE PERFUME: Indian Love Oil. Also, the shanty town spirit of K'Road and Upper Symonds Street and the Domain at night (fairy lights in the trees and glowworms in the creek). And BFM. DOWNERS All that peace, love and harmony — human nature is not going to go away. .. "attitude"... "positive role models".. . the fact that retrogressive Hollywood pap like Pretty Woman proved so popular... the Dunedin I Port Chalmers alternative cogniscenti carping because I dare to ask the personal questions. TOP FIVE RECORDS Bossanova, Pixies. Impact Is Imminent, Exodus. She Hangs Brightly Mazzy Starr. Louder Than Love Soundgarden. Pretty Hate Machine Nine Inch Nails. NZ SINGLE OF THE YEAR 'Apparatus of Love', Axel Grinders. NZ PERFORMER OF THE YEAR

Frankie, Fatal Jelly Space. CONCERT OF THE YEAR Faith No More . FAVE VIDEO Iggy and Deborah doing 'Well, Did You Evah!', directed by Alex Cox for Red, Hot and Blue. PREDICTIONS FOR 1991 Libraries are the nightclubs of the future. PAULMcKESSAR 1990 ‘ SKEPTICS: live and Amalgam dominating my cranial activity for weeks on end. An experience that will be sadly missed. TERMINALS: vintage Christchurch garage, Uncoffined (Flying Nun) and 'Do The Void'/Deadly Tango' (X/Way). PETER JEFFERIES: übiquitous on Xpressway; Plagal Grind drummer, a collaborative 7" with Robbie Muir and a solo album on cassette that was The Last Great Challenge In A Dull World. WEST COAST SOUND: San Fransisco delivers delights aplenty. Home of Pavement, Negativland and the Thinking Fellas Union Local 2821. VERLAINES: Some Disenchanted Evening, the most ignored and ; underrated in a year full of albums by Flying Nun's big guns. PUSSY GALORE: A year old already, but when DialM For Motherfucker landed in my sweaty palms at last, its

mix of Stones' Exile sleaze, , swamp-rock geetars and Axemen spirit made the weight worthwhile. J. GREENFIELD TOP FIVE ALBUMS - The Real Thing, Faith No More. Ritual De Lo Habitual, Jane's Addiction New Age Savage, Pretty Wicked Head and the Desperate Men. Submarine Bells, the Chills. Are You Okay, Was (Not Was). NEW ZEALAND SINGLE 'Heavenly Pop Hit', the Chills CONCERT OF THE YEAR Violent Femmes, Theatre Royal BEST VIDEOS ' 'Heavenly Pop Hit', the Chills; 'Higher Ground', Red Hot Chili Peppers. PREDICTION FOR 1991 A stable venue in Christchurch, no change in local radio. MATTHEW HYLAND GOOD 1. The cynicism of a few sane individuals shone even more brightly than usual through a fog of nauseating populist positivity. 2. After delays of varying length the Young Gods L'Eau Rouge and Einsturzende Neubauten's Haus Der Leuge appeared and Fellini's La Dolce Vita returned. BAD 1. No-one bought L'Eau Rouge and Haus Der Leuge at their bargain import prices and a thousand middle aged bores tried to reduce La Dolce Vita to a one dimensional fable on so-called "modern decadence". 2. Hippies were everywhere, from the quasi-fascist ("the poor choose their own destinies") New Age movement to supposedly "alternative" musicians . declaring sampling immoral and writing tedious folksongs. ALBUMS Amalgam, Skeptics Thermos, Bailter Space Heart of Darkness, Hoodlum Priest The Good Son, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Sour, S.P.U.D. (what bias?!) LIVE Sugarcubes, Skeptics, Bailter Space, 3Ds, Drill. 1991 PREDICTIONS Blixa Bargeld elected Chancellor of Germany after Elvis Slag exposes Helmut Kohl's erotic tryst with his BMW, nukes LA and Manchester, temporarily reducing the amount of invasive, musical cancer in our lives. ' > ; : ;

DUNCAN CAMPBELL THE DOWN SIDE: This Oil Thing, redundancy, the return of the Nats, gun freaks of every ilk arid news media more concerned with satisfying people's cravings than serving their interests. THE UPSIDE Re-employment (one of the lucky few), the friends who cared, the fall of Thatcher and Off Beat's outrageous parties. TOP ALBUMS Mek WeDweet, Burning Spear. The King of Reggae Survivors hits his - hottest dancefloor beat yet, but still • remembers his roots. Heaven or Las Vegas, Cocteau Twins. Play it soft for those fluffy moments, loud just for kicks. Lush, captivating, gorgeous. Melt Straitjacket Fits. Sheer hard work has brought maturity to our finest band whose panoramic live sound is finally captured on record. No tokenism here, this is world-class stuff. Goo, Sonic Youth. A big noise, for rattling the windows. Natural Suntan, Macka B. Streetwise, politically sound, informative and funny. This big-hearted British reggae MC take the crap out of rap. NZ SINGLE OF THE YEAR 'Heavenly Pop Hit', the Chills (the radio stations couldn't ignore this one). NZ PERFORMER OF THE YEAR Chris Knox CONCERT OF THE YEAR The Fall (honourable mention: Natalie Cole at the Mandela Concert). VIDEO OF THE YEAR Anything by Public Enemy, despite the need for some heavy handed , censorship (honourable mention: Telecom's Christmas ad). BITING THE DUST IN '9l: Thousand more jobs, Paul Holmes (dare we hope?), and lots of innocent and not-so-innocent people in desert holocaust, unless more of us cry "Enough!" - GEORGE KAY THE GOOD LISTENING: The best white albums by a street: Room To Roam, Waterboys; Jordan, Prefab Sprout; All Shook Down, Replacements; Gold Mother, James; Fragile Porcelain Bros; The Comforts Madness, Pale Saints. The best black albums: Vol 2 Soul II Soul; Midnight Stroll Robert Cray; Fear of a Black Planet, Public Enemy.

The trendy north of England couldn't sustain great albums but the year's best singles belonged to them (eg 'She

comes In The Fall', Inspiral Carpets; 'Everything Changed', the Charlatans; 'Make Me Smile', Wedding Present, plus MC Hammer 'U Can't Touch This', Van Morrison 'Real Real Gone').

BEST NZ SINGLE 'I Can't Live Without Your Love', Smokeshop; 'Heavenly Pop Hit', the Chills; 'Smoking Her Wings', the Bats. WATCHING Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, x Taggart, English Soccer, any Westerns, Thomas The Tank Engine. READING Crosstown Traffic, Charles Shaar Murray; Loren Estleman's Amos Walker books; Dan Kavanagh's Duffy books; Monday's Warriors, Maurice Shadbolt; The Innocent, lan McEwan. DRINKING Good NZ whites, whiskey (when somebody else buys it), Monteiths, Guinness. THE BAD All politicans, RTR Countdown, unemployment, CDs, the disappearance of vinyl, Scotland losing to the All Blacks, the World Cup, NZ drivers, the weather. CHRIS BOURKE UPPERS The quota issue gaining so much support; Mushroom's support of Flying Nun; Southside's nuturing of Pacific funk. Music reading: Starmakers and Svengalis, Crosstown Traffic, Off The Record, but best of all, Sue McCauley's Bad Music— the first published novel, about NZ rock n'roll. Accessible, ' accurate, witty, stylish, musical. When The Haka Met The Boogie. Movie music: Goodfellas, Sea of Love, Fabulous Baker Boys, An Angel At My Table.

DOWNERS The demise of NZ broadcasting. Offensive, arrogant, parasitical state TV, the selling of the frequencies, ensuring the people get no voice, a new minister who's a philistine (and how relevant is radio?), Aramoana, superpower posturing, unemployment, self-serving callous NZ politicians.

ALBUMS The New Orleans Album, Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Brother's Keeper, Neville Brothers. Stolen Moments, John Hiatt. Wild Card, Warratahs. Enlightenment, Van Morrison.

REISSUES Hangin'On In There, Paul Kelly (born USA, 1940) (the perfect fusion of southern soul, gospel and country). Are You From Dixie? Country Brother Teams of the '3os (RCA) (glorious fraternal harmonies). NZSONGS Warratah's 'Akautangi Way', Let's Planet 'Lesson Learned', Death Ray Cafe 'The News'. Otis Mace (demo) 'She Makes Me Feel Better (than Townes Van Zandt)', Al Hunter 'Love Comes Down'. NZ PERFORMERS Arthur Baysting, Darren Watson, Wayne Mason. CONCERT Rock The Quota, Wellington PREDICTION NZ losing its identity before it realised one existed. WILLIAM DART UPPERS Jane Campion's An Angel At My Table and Gaylene Preston's Ruby anbdßata — two films which show, as if we should need reminding, that our women filmmakers are up there with the best of them. The Royal New Zealand Ballet's Jean. For all its problems and massive budget, a brave and noble gesture pointing out the need to put our money where our culture is. Auckland's Gay and Lesbian Film Festival brought a healthy clutch of local films out of the archive, including the 1980 Squeeze. Perhaps the mainstream Festival could do more in this line. . Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanours and Paul Mazurksy's Enemies — A Love Story — films with wit, irony, style and humanity, an oasis in a sea of dross and forumla. Red, Hot and Blue — the late Cole Porter lends some tunes to the AIDS cause through some stunning versions by everyone from Jimmy Sommerville to Iggy and Deborah. New Zealand got it live and uncut (American MTV didn't show the Sommerville and Jungle Brothers clips). DOWNERS The Iron Lady might be no more but our world is firmly veering to the right. .. the ad agency hysteria and squandering of public monies in 1990, for many right-thinking NZ'ers it's 1990 every year... the long awaited NZ music quota — will it ever happen? .... Criminal Waste Department 1: Why is the Aotea Centre dead as a dodo over the summer? Criminal Waste Department 2: Dear Warren Beatty,

why ask Stephen Sondheim to write songs for Dick Tracey and then edit them out of existence?

TOP 5 ALBUMS Submarine Bells, Chills Some Disenchanted Evening Verlaines Melt Straitjacket Fits Songs forDrella Lou Reed and John Cale The Internationale Billy Bragg NZ SINGLE OF THE YEAR 'Gaskrankenstation', Headless Chickens NZ PERFORMER OF THE YEAR Martin Phillipps CONCERT OF THE YEAR Warwick Blair and friends in The Good Seeds Are So Small, one of the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra's pre-concert events at the Aotea, last September. CHAD TAYLOR UPPERS Jeff Koons marrying Cicciolina. Fabian Baron designing Interview. Miller's Crossing. / The Rainbow . Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down. Steven Meisel photographing Christy Turlington. DOWNERS The droning Quota. Goldie: stupid price, stupid purchase, piss-awful painter. Wild At Heart not being as good as it should. ALBUMS World Clique, Deee-Lite. I, Capricorn (1974), Shirley Bassey. Mother's Milk, Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's Not Unusual, Tom Jones. Mixed Up, The Cure. TELEVISION The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Randall & Hopkirk Deceased. CONCERT OF THE YEAR Sugarcubes NZ PERFORMER MC OJ and Rhythm Slave Headless Chickens NZ SINGLES That nice one by the Chills and that loud one by the Headless Chickens that went very fast. 1991 PREDICTIONS Twin Peaks, Darkman, more coffee, Gulf fun, Sherilyn Fenn KERRY BUCHANAN ... v.i UPPERS . Dancehall reggae, the club sound of Jamaica, raggmuffin takeover with the production of Augustus 'Gussie' Clarke and Steely and Clevie. High alcohol beer from Belgium and new tattoos from Phill's Demographic Studio. - DOWNERS ' i Capitalism and the ever widening middle of the road. ' TOP FIVE ALBUMS Mother's Milk, Red Hot Chili Peppers. Stay Sick Cramps... World Clique, Deee-Lite. . ■ Fear Of Black Planet, Public Enemy. Plus heaps of singles, some of which are: Cutty Ranks 'The Stopper', Shabba Ranks 'Golden Touch', Home T, 'All Around The World', 808 State 'Cubic', Ital Rockers 'ltal Anthem', Tricky Disco 'Tricky Disco', Public Enemy Welcome To The Terrordome', and the best ever, LL Cool J, 'The Booming System'. NZ SINGLE OF THE YEAR Upper Hutt Posse, 'Against The Flow', with all the hyped up nationalism of. Tour Year and all that crap, this stands out as the real song f0r.990. ■ NZ PERFORMER OF THE YEAR Upper Hutt Posse CONCERT OF THE YEAR Cramps - • BEST VIDEO Rudy Ray Moore's Dolemite and John Leslies' The Pillowman. PREDICTION FOR 1991 Gloom and despair, corporate rock and its lackies will continue to keep things their way. Fight back and take control of what is yours.

CRAIG ROBERTSON 1990: commemorate not celebrate, copulate not fornicate, not even boring Akers S.P.U.D. would get into the swing of things by changing their name to KUMARA.

UPPERS The Robbie keeping jugs at $3.80. TV3 Election Night coverage. Living through the Dunedin winter without holes in my shoes.

DOWNERS National Party election victory. My power bills. TVNZ cutting the pre-titles opening scene from Cheers.

TOP 5 ALBUMS Fear Of A Black Planet, Public Enemy. Too Much Sleep, Bongwater. The Cactus Album, 3rd Bass. Uncoffined, The Terminals. Done By The Forces of Nature, Jungle Brothers.

NZ SINGLE OF THE YEAR 'One Good Reason', Straw People. NZ PERFORMER OF THE YEAR The Puddle, an album in 1991 will give the rest of the country the chance to hear this misshapen love child of Kafka and Sinatra (Nancy that is). CONCERT OF THE YEAR Couldn't afford out of town travel, so the Puddle aside, the best local concerts were the Bats at the Town Hall and Graeme Jefferies at the Crown. BEST VIDEO Actually, I quite liked two this year: Deee-lite Groove Is In The Heart and the Pixies Dig For Fire. PREDICTIONS

The Simpsons will be taken off the air following incest allegations involving Bart Simpson and an HB pencil. As it becomes increasingly difficult to tell the difference between RTR and TV ads, TVNZ cancel all music shows. GLOSS returns this time on TV3, with Billy T James as Rex and Richard Lee as Chelsea's new lover. SIMON GRIGG UPPERS BFM, a continuing joy and the only FM station in Auckland that's not dead from the neck up. Ini 990, thanks to shops like Real Groovy, 256, Signal, Marbecks and Truetone it was finally possible to get almost any record you desired. Auckland's retailers are now the equal of any in the world. And the service is better. Espressos from Potter Blair and Ice Cream Moros. MORE magazine, in touch and readable, male orfemale. The polynesian-pakeha cross culturalism that's changing the face of inner city Auckland. And finally, not only has Flying Nun survived, but in 1990 it thrived, as did Southside, the sound of the next generation. DOWNERS Racism on the fringe of the indie scene, unnecessary and hypocritical. • Any magazine that puts the ." ■ " Travelling Wilburies in its Best Albums of 1990 has real problems. Metro has become middle aged, dull, self-gratifying and about as relevant to the city I live in as the New York Times. No new albums from Luther Vandross, Elvis Costello or Alexander O'Neal, and James Brown is still not free. TVNZ; J’- ' GARTH SEEAR UPPERS Manchester United lifting the FA Cup. Deee-Lite's 'Groove Is In The Heart', Soho's 'Hippychick', Soup Dragon's'l'm Free', Happy Monday's 'Step On', Primal Scream'Loaded'. \ David Lynch's Wild At Heart, Ulrich Edel's Last Exit To Brooklyn, Martin Scorsese's Good Fellas, Alejandre Jodorowky's Santa Sangre. The genius of Paul Gascoigne. Scott Walker available on CD. DOWNERS England going out of the world cup on penalties. Liverpool FC. No new stuff from De La Soul or Stone Roses. The encroachment on benefits and social services and other signposts of this country's economic and spiritual decline. KIRK GEE TOP FIVE ALBUMS How come US HARDCORE, usually the most conservative genre, produced some of the most progressive sounds of the year? Try Fugazi Repeater, Shelter Perfection of Desire, Reason To Believe, When Reason Sleeps, Underdog, The Vanishing Point, and the Rollins band Turned On, for starters. RAP: maybe not a great year but there was still a Public Enemy LP and Tribe Called Quest, Digital Underground, Ice Cube, the Jungle Brothers and the 800-Yaa Tribe all did real good things. METAL-ISH STUFF: Napalm Death, L 7, Scatterbrain, Alice In Chains, all got ■ - played a bit round here but the year pretty much belonged to Suicidal Tendencies and Primus, both of whom put out LPs that made everything else sound sort of lame. OLD STUFF: As usual sounded good still. Mainly hundreds of great but stupid Doowop records, but there was the likes of Mingus's Shoes Of The . Fisherman's Wife, Funkadelic and •

Parliament on CD for full boom potential. Also GOOD NEW OLD STUFF like the Black Crowes doing the Stones and Neil Young's supurb Ragged Glory. SPOKEN WORD RESURGENCE: From The Kerouac Collection through to Soundbites From The Counter Culture, these folks said it all. NZ SINGLE / PERFORMER Check out Rumblefish, Freak Power, Upper Hutt Posse, MC OJ and Rhythm Slave, Deep Sea Racing Mullets, Salad Daze, Ultimate, Enemy Productions, Nixons, Headless Chickens. CONCERT OF THE YEAR Again, lots, all of the above and impressive foreigners were Faith No More, Public Enemy, Rollins Band and Mudhoney. BEST VIDEO Runman '69: a bunch of Malibu crazies who somehow market their

homemade videos. Mainly surfing and skateboarding but the real fun comes with the incidental footage of beach babes, local crazies, sharks, fistfights, land lugeing and all the general stupidity and depravity that makes life worth living. PREDICTION FOR 1991 The Weekly World News 'Top Psychics Predict For 1991 issue. It'll tell you everything.

NZ SINGLES Upper Hutt Posse, 'Do It Like This' (remix). Headless Chickens, 'Gaskrankenstation'. MC OJ & Rhythm Slave, 'The One About Girls'. CONCERT OF THE YEAR The DMC convention, London, March, 34 acts over four days.

RECORDS Mama Said Knock You Out, LL Cool J. 'Take Me Back', Rhythmatic 12". 'Get Yourself Together', Young Disciples 12". 'Carlton', Cool with Nature 12". Look How Long Loose Ends. 'Come Together', Primal Scream 12". 25 Years Later, Blaze. 'The Masterplan', Diana Brown 12". And anything produced by Gussie Clark out of Kingston's Music Studios.

BEST VIDEO Dale McCready's Box Video 1991 PREDICTION The present government will resign in disgrace. Jim and Doris Bolger will become professional family planning advisors, John Banks and Ruth Richardson will join a travelling troupe of clowns, Ross Meurant and Graham Thorne will wake up black and be sent to live in Soweto.

JOHNPILLEY UPPERS The Quota Lobby and the Aotearoa Music Trust for raising the awareness of local music. All the local indie labels for flying the flag and believing. DOWNERS My shop being burgled. The Sesqui fiasco. The election. The demise of vinyl. Unreliable bastards and time wasters. TOP 5 ALBUMS Hemisphere, Straw People. " Wild Card, Warratahs. Amalgam, Skeptics. She Hangs Brightly, Mazzy Star. Are You OK, Was Not Was. NZ SINGLE OF THE YEAR 'One Good Reason', Merenia and the Straw People NZ PERFORMER Belinda Todd for her eyebrows and Jimbo Bolger for his press conference faux pas's. CONCERT OF THE YEAR Rock The Quota at the James Cabaret. BEST VIDEO Rock The Quota PREDICTIONS FOR 1991 Anti-govt riots and the sacking of Ruth Richardson as the scapegoat. The

revival of the protest song. CD backlash. Skapa, Shihad, Southside of Bombay and the Inhalers. GEOFF DUNN

UPPERS Peace signs, great gigs by Faith No More, Steve Earle, Anthrax, Mudhoney and others.

DOWNERS Still no decent rock venue for touring bands, deaths of Emily Remler and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

TOP FIVE ALBUMS Led Zeppelin box set. Magic Nirvana Robert Plant. Passion and Warfare, Steve Vai. Ritual De Lo Habitaul, Jane's Addiction. Time's Up, Living Colour.

BEST NEW BAND Mother Love Bone CONCERT OF THE YEAR Australia (Sydney Entertainment Centre), Alice Cooper, Mt Smart. BEST VIDEO Aerosmith, Things That Go Pump In The Night, Joe Satriani 'Big Bad Moon' clip. PREDICTION FOR 1991 . Sadam Hussain will quit the war and form a glam punk opera trio with Ronnie Biggs and Gary Glitter.