LETTERS

Rip It Up, Issue 182, 1 September 1992, Page 29

LETTERS

Write ’em and post ’em to PO Box 5689 Auckland 1, or fax ’em to (09) 376 558

KOOL-THING Regarding: review of Sonic Youth Dirty by D. Zarakov. What is the album actually like? Should I buy it? Obviously I’m not kool enough to interpret D. Zarakov-speak! ’ DAVID PATTERSON SYDNEY - -\ .

SLEEK BOTT REPLIES If your correspondent Herbert Lebozo found Sleek Bott cassettes to be "hissy", it is obvious his deck is not equipped with the revolutionary Dolby 4Q reduction system we standardly use on our recordings. Everyone in Auckland uses 4Q as a matter of course — in fact we are currently experimenting with the even more revolutionary 4Q2 system, which is an even greater and immensely popular system in the City of Sales. In fact, ask anyone in Auckland about anything and the reply is usually "4Q2!" I would give the same advice to your correspondent. STEVE MCCABE DEAR M. HYLAND Really? You sorry little pinhead. I mean to say: "Bourgeois intellectual Swans fan who doesn't know howto have fun?" Whoever gave you the idea you were THAT INTERESTING. Try "prematurely middle-aged postmodernist bore" (copyright Swells NME 9 May 1992). We must get our labels right, after all. Yours cutely and robotically GRANT MCDONAGH REALLY DOWN Godallmighty! What did I ever do to deserve being stuck in Dunedin this year? The HardOns' cancellation on Friday night was just the bloody end! Down here we get very little in the way of international punk/ metal/ hard-rock/ hardcore/ death/ grindcore (ie none whatsoever) bands visiting. Just to make it worse, Sammy's (nightclub) refused to tell the audience that the main act was not going to get to Dunedin — is that kind of deception illegal or just a clever move on their behalf? Either way,’ I feel cheated and pissed off. Dunedin is truly cursed. The good news is that you don't have to live in a place like Dunedin. I finish my degree in a few monthsm and will

leave the country for more interesting pastures and a wider range of music, culture and employment opportunities very soon. What I cannot get in New Zealand I will take from elsewhere because that is the only way to do it. Napalm Death, Slayer, Ramones, Hard- . Ons here I come! . ' ; See you all in Hell. ; CLARK ASHTON SMITH MILLER-WRITE . I just had to respond to Tony Miller's review of the Black Crowes concert at Mt Smart, in particular his comment about pot (the belly variety). Like, man were you at the same concert?? However, I would agree that much of the crowd thought they were waaay too cool to boogie, maybe because many of them were so young. All my friends thought it was awesome. We had to have an hour of silence afterwards to truly assimilate the cosmic experience we'd undergone. And those who went to the concert without listening to Musical Companion well, more fool you. CHRIS ROBINSON’S VELVET FLARES . . DR MOANHEAD It seems that the only way a local band can get mentioned in your magazine (which now looks like NM£ three years ago

— why did you change it?) is a) to be white b) to sound like bad Ozzy Osborne or Led Zep ripoffs. I'm 23, part Samoan, and I think your magazine is really starting to get dull. The Chilis and Sonic Youth and Pearl Jam are OKbut there's more to music and you people just ignore it. A lot of us want to read about other things. You used to have a really good dance column. What happened to Simon Grigg, Kirk Gee and Kerry Buchanan? Get Real. TONY THE MARAUDER RIGHT NUMBER The Gluepot, 25th August. I have seen God's radio and it has Seven Dials on it. AMAZED HATE MALE I'm replying to a letter in the August RIU from Stinky of Wellington. It's obvious he's very jealous of Auckland and the amount of good bands rising to stardom. I happen to love Shihad and Head Like A Hole but I also support the bands in Auckland, for example Rumblefish, Braintree, Peoplehood, Dead Flowers. If someone held a gun to your head I would gladly pull the trigger and feed your brains to the Devil your father. Who cares if you hate Dead Flowers, they hate

you too and I wouldn't recommend Riq to eat your shorts or he might die of poisonous acid seeping from your puny little dick. So sorry Shihad and Head Like A Hole have to live in the same area with a reject like you. PS Dead Flowers can and will make it. VICKIE AUCKLAND SOUTHERN MAN Christchurch bands don't get the same exposure as groups in the North Island ie Auckland and Wellington. Why not? Is it because they haven't harvested themselves an image to attract people? Headless Chickens, Push Push, NRA, Head Like A Hole and all the other bullshit bands come out of these cities need their imagery to sell themselves because the music wouldn't stand on its own. These guys have jumped on the metal bandwagon but obviously their music wasn't enough so they came up with this bullshit stage show to help them along. The music itself won't stand the test of time, it's already sounding dated compared to REAL metal. As for playing metal, you dudes don't know shit. Come down here and witness some REAL metal like Demise and the five or six other death bands who exist here. These bands

don't need dumb clothes (or lack of them) to get people interested in their genre. So what if the crowds that come to see them aren't the biggest. With the lack of exposure and airplay this type of music receives it's hardly surprising. Two of these bands have recorded demoes but do they receive any airplay on student radio? Of course not. But they will always play tiresome old school music that student/ alternative bands will always play. Are these people scared of giving a fairly new form of music a chance or are they simply narrow minded? I'd have to say both. Wise up and give this newish extreme music some recognition. TV3 have done just this and are filming the deathmetal scene down here for a segment on their 60 Minutes programme. And you thought you were into underground music. Yours ’ T. JAC CHRISTCHURCH PS I doubt that King Loser (appropriately named) will ever get a bad review as D. Zarakov plays with them and the other members all know one or two of the staff at RIU. The same would apply to SPUD, the Axemen and any one associated with the RIU staff. How dicky and incestuous can one magazine get? Isn't it about time M. Hyland reviewed SPUD again? RIU REPLIES: It is RIU policy to review support bands as well as the headlining act. King Loser have appeared regularly in our review columns simply because they've managed to get in on another act’s bill, not because they are associated with the magazine. LAWNMOWER MAN I feel that I must correct an error made in the Cinemafile of your August issue. Everybody is saying that Stephen King wrote the story for the movie The Lawnmower Man. He didn't.

Anyone familiar with his short story of the same name will realise this. His story is only a few pages long and has absolutely nothing to do with Virtual Reality or in fact science of any kind. I think Stephen King himself is pretty pissed about it too as he was recently suing the movie makers for using his name to sell something he didn't even write. I suggest people borrow King's book of short stories, Graveyard Shift, and see for themselves how totally off the mark that hyped-up movie really is. If they have to resort to fibbing about its origin, it can't be all that great. SHELLEY TREWERN WELLINGTON