1994: The Way We Say It Was

Rip It Up, Issue 209, 1 January 1995, Page 14

1994: The Way We Say It Was

JOHN RUSSELL ALBUMS Dead Flowers, Sweetfish; Spearhead, Home; Barry White, All Time Greatest Hits; Marvin Gaye, Classic Collection Boxed Set; Various, Hi Phat Diet/A Wild Pitch Compilation.

SINGLES (OR SHOULD'VE BEEN) Pumpkinhead, ‘Water’; Sisters Underground, ‘ln The Neighbourhood’; Drill, ‘Happy Home’; Prince, ‘Most Beautiful Girl In. The World’; Greg Fleming, ‘Codeine Road’; Kylie Minogue, ‘Put Yourself In My Place’; Dave Dobbyn, ‘lt Dawned On Me’; Shihad, ‘Derail’; G Love and Special Sauce, ‘She Got Sauce’. MUSIC VIDEO Dinosaur Jr, ‘Feel The Pain’. FILM Ace Ventura Pet Detective. TELLY World Cup Soccer, Melrose. LIVE Straitjacket Fits at The Big Day Out, Pumpkinhead; Super Chunk; Shihad; Radio Backstab and DJ Payback; Mike Albert and the Jordannaires; Ted Hawkins; Dead Flowers. • V SPUNK Anna Paquin... oh hang on. PLONKERS The endless stream of floppy-fringed English . dullards who flesh out one riff and call it an album. HYPE FLOP Moritz ice-creams. ■ i : EPITOME OF COOL Tom Petty’s acceptance speech at the MTV Video Awards. HANGERY Anywhere that will “put it on my tab. Please.” EAT Anything dead I can spell and pronounce. MAGAZINE UK magazine Loaded — chocka with football, swearing, babes and plonk. - DISCOVERY Older women. NEW FOUND WISDOM “When, you give 80%, they [girls] give 20%" — ©1977 Teddy Pendergrass. COMIC HAPPENING OF THE YEAR The Strawpeople vs Tranquillity Bass ‘controversy’. SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF The Fits; Pump Up D'Angelo. FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION Moonwalking with a single white glove. WILLIAM DART ALBUMS Dawn Upshaw, / wish it so — all my favourite Broadway songs, from Blitzstein to Bernstein, sung by the sassiest soprano in the business; Wendy House, Hot Action Plastic — but do I dare play ‘Fuck the Mall’ to my Denver friends?; Sandie Shaw, Nothing Less Than Brilliant — the title says it all; Mink, Mink — a co-op with the freshness and crispness of a brisk Southerly. SINGLES Dave Dobbyn, ‘Language’; Marie Sheehan, ‘Kia Tu Mahea’. RADIO Concert FM’s Janet Frame tribute — 60 minutes of eloquence from all involved; The Story of Pop on National Radio — alas, in mono. • . MUSIC VIDEO The Mutton Birds, ‘Anchor Me’. FILM Heavenly Creatures — as the fanged Tom Cruise would say: “You’ve been very, very naughty girls”; ' Robin Hood — Men In Tights — daft and delight-

ful. TELLY Sally Jessy Raphael for trashy times; Heartland for anchoring; The People Next Door— a brave start for Triangle Television. LIVE Keith Lewis singing lieder divinely, with Michael Houstoun at the piano; the Mutton Birds prancing around a pipe band at the Galaxy; Rob Wasserman playing to himself at the Town Hall. SPUNK He might be cross if I named him. PLONKER

John Banks — although he’s had me hysterical over Sunday morning clean-ups. HYPE FLOP The Glory of Gershwin — what they did to George shouldn’t be done to the Stardust Cowboy. EPITOME OF COOL Gin on a hot Summer’s day. HANGERY

An astroturf cell by day, and places where they scribble in the dark by night. EATERY Mexican Cafe — still the best guac’ in town, and they’ll give our designated driver free juice. MAGAZINE Amßear — furtively posted in brown envelopes; Weekly World News — furtively read at newsstands. DISCOVERY A CD of Sandy Wilson’s Valmouth for $5 in Echo records; wild and wonderful music by Silverstre Revueltas in the APO’s ASB Fiesta concerts. NEW FOUND DISCOVERY Relinquishing chateau de cardboard for ever. LOOK BACK IN ANGER Hushed-up scandals in private schools; copyright laws that encourage xerox pirates; justice ministers with radar detctors in their cars. FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION Filmfest 2 — and it’s happening in Auckland, in April! JEREMY CHUNN ALBUMS Kyuss, Sky Valley, Morrissey, Vauxhall and I; Portishead Dummy, Slayer, Divine Intervention. SINGLES Buttfucker Mary and the Crepes, ‘Finger Me’ (Spain). MUSIC VIDEO Nothing. FILM The Last Seduction; What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. TELLY Beavis and Butthead (in bed in Hawaii you fuckers). LIVE Virginia Reel; Yage. SPUNK/FOX My wife; Claudia; Sharon. PLONKER/MOLE Anita McNaught; Marcus. HYPE FLOP Courtney Love; REM; Sleeps With Angels; Milla; Supergroove; Dead Flowers; Head Like A Hole; I could go on forever... EPITOME OF COOL Sharon Stone at 46, drunk on Vodka; Doge Challenger; Beretta M 92 9mm. HANGERY Anywhere... nowhere... EATERY Shochiku; Cafe Casa Azul. ■ MAGAZINE Loaded; The Nose; Revelation. DISCOVERY Frida Kahlo; The dance of a thousand labs; that New Zealanders must initiate change now or suffer eternal opaque vision. NEW FOUND WISDOM My saucy wife. TRAGI-COMIC HAPPENING Moving back to New Zealand. GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF The Pussycats. SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Fred Sonic’ Smith. LOOK BACK IN ANGER The dressmaker and the photographer. FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION There should be none. BRONWYN TRUDGEON ALBUMS Pavement, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain; Lushburger, Slabneckery, Sugar, File Under Easy Listening; Wendy House, Hot Action Plastic; Nirvana, MTV Unplugged in New York; Dead Can Dance, Toward The Within; Counting Crows, August and Everything After, Pearl Jam, Vitalogy, Ween, Chocolate and Cheese; Smashing Pumpkins, Pisces Iscariot; Various Artists, Natural Born Killers Soundtrack. SINGLES Frank Black, ‘Headache’; King Loser, ‘Stairway to Heaven’; Sinead O’Connor, ‘You Made Me The Thief of Your Heart’ and ‘Fire On Babylon’. MUSIC VIDEO Frank Black, ‘Headache’; Alice in Chains, ‘I Stay Away’; Smashing Pumpkins, ‘Rocket’. FILM Natural Born Killers; Savage Nights; True Romance; and the dawning of The Incredibly Strange Film Festival. TELLY Beverly Hills 90210 re-runs on Saturday afternoons; Liquid Television. LIVE Straitjacket Fits, against the storm at Mountain Rock and storming out at The Big Day Out, Smashing Pumpkins, The Big Day Out; Chamber Made Opera’s Recital, Victoria University Memorial Theatre; Kristen Hersh, The Paramount; Pavement, Victoria University Union Hall; Lushburger, Burgerdyne. SPUNK/FOX My bigga, bigga, bigga, hunka love, Mike, and our hot, plastic honey, Ramona.

PLONKER/MOLE Jon Bon Jovi — for not only torturing us with a crappy Christmas single, but then accompanying it with a shameless video of him living out his mushy fantasies with Cindy C, right down to a pair of personalised stockings hanging by the fireplace. Gag-o-rama! Mariah Carey — for her equally bile-inducing Christmas video effort. I’d like to see how cutesypie she and her Santa suit looked in a honking great avalanche. Mr Blobby — for existing. HYPE FLOP Generation X. EPITOME OF COOL Donald Reid; the Carpenters Revival; Quentin Tarantino; Juliette Lewis. HANGERY The Mighty Toyota; Taipa (here I come!). EATERY Al and Pete’s; Mexican Cafe; and oh, how I miss Calzone lunches -— it’s been months since I’ve had one couriered to me. MAGAZINE Rolling Stone; Details. BOOK The Best of Rolling Stone, edited by Robert Love. DISCOVERY That you can view four consecutive hours of freak talk shows on daytime TV, five days a week. It’s a wonderful way to lose touch with reality, as is Victory Beer (6%), which I also discovered this year. For maximum reality loss, unplug the phone and mix liberal amounts of both discoveries. NEW FOUND WISDOM Coffee first, then tights, then shoes. If you can’t make that work, try a hair of the dog that bit you the night before — it’s a dead cert’ to re-start your tail wagging. Lastly, but certainly no less important, remember, if you can get your lipstick on straight, you can face anything. TRAGI-COMIC HAPPENINGS Getting caught in any place where calm behaviour is considered sacred (ie. lifts, meetings, ‘civilised’ cafes, movie theatres) with the dreaded Shirley Charles — we’re talking serious social death by hysterics here. Ronald Reagan ‘announcing’ he has Alzheimer’s disease. GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Richard Nixon. SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Kurt Cobain; Nirvana; Straitjacket Fits; Cyril Collard; Dennis Potter; Charles Bukowski. FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION

The revenge of the killer pop tune on the Top 40

JONATHAN KING ALBUMS Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds,Let Love In; Noir Soundtrack album, Swing for a Crime. * SINGLE Yes. MUSIC VIDEO Grace, ‘Confessions’; Dead Flowers, ‘Dead Boy’, David Parker, ‘Love By Satellite’. FILM Best: Hudsucker Proxy, Natural Born ' Killers (but only to fill the gap until Pulp Fiction).""" Worst: Branagh’s Frankenstein, by a country mile. TELLY No thanks, unless they bring back Beverly Hills and Melrose Place (but we’ll pass on Models Inc). Honourable mention to Seinfeld, and Beverly Hills re-runs followed by Class of 96 on Saturday after-, noons LIVE The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. FOX Cameron Diaz in The Mask. PLONKER Kenneth Branagh as an absurdly buff ’n’ blonde Victor Frankenstein. HYPE FLOP Thousands of keen young punters beleive what John Taite says about Oasis in RipltUp and buy the album — the subsequent outrage and record burning is on a scale not seen since John Lennon declared the Beatles ‘bigger than Jesus’ in the

19605. EPITOME OF COOL Kramer on Seinfeld; Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear (1962). MAGAZINES Details; Film Threat; Pavement. DISCOVERY

If you don’t stop you can drink Black Macs all night — at least until about sam, or when your money runs out. Try it tonight. NEW FOUND WISDOM Above drinking experiment should, under absolutely no circumstances, be combined with imbibing red wine, drinks named after 70s Blacksploitation movies or — and this is the most important one — 52% alcoholic poison named Gold Rush. TRAGI-COMIC HAPPENING Michael Jackson buys his way out of something we all now he did, then tries to prove that he’s a perfectly normal fellow by marrying Elvis’s daughter in Central America. Hello? GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF The Gluepot (where will the fossils that held up the Corner Bar go now?). SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Why didn't anyone tell me Raul Julia had died? FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION Logan's Run: black and silver jumpsuits for the boys; little see-through, pastel-coloured, chiffon numbers for the girls. SHIRLEY CHARLES ALBUMS Beck, Mellow Gold; Hole, Live Through This; Soundgarden, Superunkown; Ween, Chocolate & Cheese; Nirvana Unplugged thingy for the wonderful covers of the Meatpuppets, David Bowie and Vaseline’s songs. SINGLE Hole, ‘Miss World’. MUSIC VIDEO Hole, ‘Miss World’; Soundgarden, ‘Black Hole Sun’. FILM Heavenly Creatures. TELLY I watch Newsnight before sleeping. LIVE Redd Kross at the Gluepot; Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at the Powerstation; Soundgarden at the Powerstation. SPUNK/FOX Owhhh... umm, anyone who has anything resembling an interesting brain, ideas, humour, etc. PLONKER/MOLE I have met too many plonker/moles. HYPE FLOP The punk rock is back! EPITOME OF COOL Travelling long distances in a car. HANGERY Home usually. EATERY Wisconsin; Rikka; home. MAGAZINE Details. DISCOVERY Snowboarding; Great Barrier Island; drinking doesn’t relieve boredom. NEW FOUND WISDOM I prefer to sleep. TRAGI COMIC HAPPENING OF THE YEAR Our office Christmas party (I’m not talking about the RipitUp contingent). GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF The grunge ‘fashion’. Now we can wear clothes we’ve always worn without being accused of all sorts of nasty things. SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF The Nirvanas. FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION ‘Advantaged alternatives’ that have taken over Ponsonby will all move to Pakuranga and Howick to soak up the desired and (then) currently fashionable ‘yukky suburban family feel’.

NICK ANGELO ALBUM Phat Trax, a five disc compilation from Rhino Records. Available on import only, it covers all the old school jams. SINGLE ‘Hip Hop Holiday’, by 3 The Hard Way got me so excited I played it every night on Nuu FM, even though it wasn’t on the playlist yet. They didn’t fire

me for that, just my overall general incompetence. (Actually they didn’t fire me, I was ‘rostered off’). An excellent hip-hop pop song. MUSIC VIDEO A tie between 'Nouveau Western’, by MC Solar and ‘The Blue Monkey’, by Suzanne Paul. TELLY Flying Blind screens on Channel 2 around 2 O’clock on a Monday morning. It’s about a geeky ‘boy-next-door’ in a relationship with a woman who goes nightclubbing every night — or has a party in her Ipft apartment every night. He tries to keep up with her because he likes the sex. (Late night TV only seems good because your brain has already turned to mush). LIVE

The Picassos are most impressive, but seeing the brass section of Supergroove play air guitar on stage is a spectacle I’ll not soon forget. SPUNK

My penchant for women on TV is already well documented, but even I wasn’t prepared for meeting Alison Mau (she walked past me!). She’s even more beautiful in person than on the TV. Drop dead gorgeous in fact — makes me wish my name was Simon. PLONKER

At the Festival Records Christmas party another ‘woman on TV’ came bounding up to me. “You’re not Mark’s cousin are you?,” she said, all smiles. All smiles right back at ya honey. I foolishly replied: "No”. Seeing that, indeed, I was not Mark’s cousin, her smile vanished and she was gone quicker than you could say: “Strawpeople." I only wanted to chat her up — she didn’t have to run away. HYPE FLOP

Both The Specialist and The River Wild proved the amount of hype and promotional dollars spent on a movie are a very good indicator of how very, very bad the film itself actually is. EPITOME OF COOL Anita McNaught. HANGERY

To quote Dennis Hopper: “Mount Roskill is where it’s at man, fuck Ponsonby. No teen gangs running wild in Ponsonby man - but they got Crips and Bloods in Mt Roskill...” DISCOVERY

Marcus Lush is actually very good, ie. a major talent. Whilst I’ve always found him funny, my earlier opinion of him had been clouded by him telling me I was a no-talent media wannabe who would never amount to much. OLD FOUND WISDOM

You can’t always get what you want, but if you try some time you just might find, you get what you need. Baby. NEW FOUND WISDOM

Women and men think in entirely different dimensions. A man will look at a glass half filled with water and say either: “It’s half full," or: “It’s half empty.” A woman will look at that same glass and say: “Did you ask me if I wanted water?” TRAGI COMIC HAPPENING

This guy offered me S2O to have sex with him, so I did, but he only had $6 in change. (Always ask to see the money first.) GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF 309 2000.

SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Unemployment benefit for young people. Now they will have no option but to accept the low wage ‘youth rates’ championed by the Business Roundtable. Expect youth offending to increase. FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION Forget the 80s, the 90s are the next big thing. Remember all those cool songs like ‘What Time Is Love?’, ‘l’m Too Sexy’, ‘OPP’ and ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’? What an era - I can’t wait for the PreRetro dance parties to start. Or should that be Post-Retro? MARTIN BELL ALBUMS Pavement, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain; Sebadoh, Bakesale; Robyn Hitchcock, The Kershaw Sessions; Robert Forster, If I Had A New York Girlfriend; REM, Monster. SINGLES Stereolab, ‘Jenny Ondioline’; Soundgarden, ‘Black Hole Sun’. NOT SINGLES, BUT SHOULD HAVE BEEN Breast Secreting Cake, various demos (also honorary mention for worst band name). MUSIC VIDEO Avoid them like a Billy Joel album. FILM Dazed and Confused. TELLY Seinfeld — damn near pissed my pants during ‘The Contest’. SPUNK/FOX Kramer in a pair of Calvin Klein's. PLONKER/MOLE Peter Mwai — would you buy a used condom from this man? HYPE FLOP Suzanne Paul’s ‘smash hit single’, ‘The Blue Monkey’. Very smart. (I don’t think so.) EPITOME OF COOL John Russell (not really, just checking to see if anyone sub-edits my copy). HANGERY The magazine rack at Whitcoulls. EATERY Shahi Cafe — dine in or takeaway. Phone 3788896 — programme it into your telephone’s speed-dial. TRAGI COMIC HAPPENING Lorelei Mason. GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF The wettest water crisis since records began. (Also listed in 1995 Guinness Book of Records as most boring topic of conversation.) SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF The water crisis — now what do you talk to taxi drivers about? LOOK BACK IN ANGER That I didn’t find a way to make money out of the water crisis. FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION Spurred by Marcus Lush’s svengali-like presence on national television, nostril hair makes a surprising fashion comeback. DARREN HAWKES ALBUMS Suede, Dog Man Star, Tufnels, Lurid; S*M*A*S*H, Self Abused; Pavement, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain; Mink, Mink. SINGLE Sabres of Paradise, Wilmot. MUSIC VIDEO Bon Jovi, ‘Always’. FILMS Fearless; Once Were Warriors. TELLY Where do you get the 3D glasses for that robot cartoon show? LIVE Super Chunk; Mink. SPUNK/FOX Johnny Depp; Jenny Harrison. PLONKER Eddie Vedder. HYPE FLOP Natural Born Killers was Oliver Stone blatantly searching for his generation X market. Oasis and Primal Scream were crap bands blatantly searching for their baby boomer market. EPITOME OF COOL Wiggling your bottom. For technique, observe drummer in Weezer’s ‘The Sweater Song’. HANGERY Any place without obligatory pinball machines. EATERY Shahi, Jervois Road. NEW FOUND WISDOM

“Hey, it's OK to read self-help books” — this book is the wisest ever written. TRAGI COMIC HAPPENING Any music award ceremonies; anything involving Michael Jackson, especially music award ceremonies. GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Hopefully: Soundgarden; Smashing Pumpkins; Pearl Jam; etc., etc. SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Winter. LOOK BACK IN ANGER Hatred; inequality; prejudice; Noel’s House Party. FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION The Stock/Aitken/Waterman years. Kids, hold onto those Sinitta albums. JOHN PILLEY ALBUMS A bumper crop of Wellington releases — well done you all. Overseas albums by: REM; Neil ‘getting better with age’ Young; Reverend Horton Heat; Ed Kuepper; Kristen Hersh; Robbie Robertson; Ronnie Earl; Jimmy Dawkins; Luther Johnson; Bjork; Spearhead; Cranberries; Paul Kelly (Australia); Paul Kelly (USA); Irma Thomas — all on the stack, not in the rack. SINGLES As I predicted, the return of 7” vinyl — hooray! And in pic’ sleeves. Death to the cassingle. MUSIC VIDEOS Bit of a blur. Anything with longer than three second shots! FILMS Red', White; Blue; The Last Seduction. TELLY Shortland Street; Between The Lines; Cracker. LIVE Ray Charles; Ed Kuepper; Youssou N’Dour; Cake Kitchen. SPUNK/FOX Terry Hatcher; Robbie Coletrane; Anita. PLONKER/MOLE Dame Shipley; Mick ‘SO-some-thing’ Jagger. HYPE FLOP $93,000 for the Dave Dobbyn In Concert from NZ On Air. I’ve seen better on SSOO Super 8. Chloe’s recording career. EPITOME OF COOL Greg Johnson and Bluespeak. His other band is not bad either — too much shoe gazing though. Elvis socks and all things blue. HANGERY Antipodes; Bodega; by the sea. EATERY Castro’s; Istanbul; home. MAGAZINE Vox; Record Collector, Real Groove; and, uh, RipltUp. BOOKS James Lee Burke — fiction you can smell. DISCOVERY Local independent artists releasing CDS. Shit, they can cost as little as Australian $1 to manufacture. REDISCOVERY The magic of Magic Sam; the melancholy of Nick Drake. NEW FOUND WISDOM Sobriety. TRAGI-COMIC HAPPENING See above. GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Grunge — have we? SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF The welfare state; sky rockets. LOOK BACK IN ANGER The continued sale of public assets and service groups to private companies in the mistaken belief this ‘competition’ will result in efficiencies

and competitive pricing. The ACC and health sector fuck ups-and U-turns. FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION 50s revival; increase in GST; collapse of the Labour Party; National landslide; the new Wellington stadium costing ratepayers a bundle, depsite the Mayor’s denial; user charges from a' privatised police force. KEVIN LIST ALBUMS Redd Kross, Phaseshifter, Dead Flowers, Sweetfish', Biohazard, State of the World Address (muthafucka!!); Jesus and Mary Chain, Stoned and Dethroned; Pantera, Far Beyond Driven. SINGLES Mantis (Dunedin metal), ’ Psychedelic; Pumpkinhead, Water, Semi Lemon Kola, Before Heaven; Nixons, Tick Tock; The Cult, Coming Down. MUSIC VIDEO Dead Flowers, Watch Her Play. FILM Heavenly Creatures. TELLY Coronation Street (just like a good cuppa tea). LIVE Human/Mantis, Quadrophenia, late November, closely followed by Pantera, Wellington. . FOX Milla Jovovich. MOLE Raquel (barmaid, Rovers Return), her chin looks like a bum and she’s very dumb. HYPE FLOP Oasis — not since the Beatles, Stones or Rolf Harris has a band such as Oasis caused so much excitement. Certain to leave their skid mark on the music scene. Does Manchester specialise in breeding talentless wankers? EPITOME OF COOL A young Adonis, with a cherry gripped in his right , hand, baseball cap tilted at a rakish angle, steaming in off his long-run up to wreak havoc among the fearful opposition. HANGERY My lounge, near TV during 3’s Summer of Cricket. EATERY J. ' WS Hare Krishna (’cause it’s cheap, not because of the food). MAGAZINE SHaKe! (lotsa glossy piccies and trivial information, which is always the best sort). DISCOVERY The Russian words for God sounds like ‘bog’. NEW FOUND WISDOM Never crash-start your car in reverse in a crowded carpark (see below). TRAGI-COMIC HAPPENING Trying to crash-start my car by getting my flatmate to tow me in reverse in a crowded carpark. Gunning the engine, the ‘triumphant’ Triumph leapt into life and smashed into what I thought was my flatmate’s Morris, but unfortunately it was in fact a brand spanking new Lancia. . . •GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF University (school’s out 4 eva). SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Kurt Cobain (I didn’t like his front either). LOOK BACK IN ANGER After some superb batting form, finally making it to the much coveted No. 10 position and having the captain (may he toast crumpets in hell) declare the innings closed as I finally got to the crease. ' . , , FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION The Sweet/Slade/T. Rex revial. I’m prepared to be near the front. GEORGE KAY ALBUMS Future Sound of London, Life Forms; Orbital, Snivilisation; Elvis Costello, Brutal Youth; Blur, Parklife; Therapy?, Troublegum; Morrissey, Vauxhall and I; Suede, Dog Man Star, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, ' Sleeps With Angels; Velvet Crush, Teenage Symphonies to God; St. Etienne, Tiger Bay. SINGLES Suede, ‘Stay Together’; St. Etienne, ‘Marble

Lions’; Rolling Stones, ‘Love is Strong; Oasis, ‘Supersonic’; Pretenders, ‘Night in My Veins; Future Sound of London, ‘Cascade’; Primal Scream, ‘Rocks’; Ed Kuepper; ‘lf I Had a Ticket’; Sugar, ‘Your Favourite Thing'; Gene, ‘Sick Sober and Sorry/Her 15 Years’. MUSIC VIDEO U2 live in Sydney. FILM Once Were Warriors. TELLY Cracker, World Cup; All Sky Soccer. LIVE Martin Carthy/Dave Swarbrick live at Rosie O’Grady's. HYPE FLOP The concept of consultative government; the emergence of an affluent West Coast punk movement. EPITOME OF COOL Robbie Coltrane in ‘Cracker’ — the fat bastard as sex symbol with integrity. HANGERY Home. EATERY Anything Chinese; anything with wine. MAGAZINE When Saturday Comes (Soccer monthly); The Blues Collection. DISCOVERY The Desperadoes, by Joseph O’Connor; The Dark Stuff, by Nick Kent; My Favourite Year, a new collection of football writing edited by Nick Hornby; James Lee Burke (again). GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Ruth Richardson. SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Jim Anderton.

JOHN ‘WAHEY!’ TAITE ALBUMS Oasis, Definitely Maybe — succulent; Massive Attack, Protection — smoove; Morrissey, Vauxhall and I — charming; Soundgarden, Superunknown — the Yanks can get somethings right; the Stone Roses, Second Coming — well worth the wait! Also great: Blur, Parklife; Pavement, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain; Beastie Boys, 111 Communication; Grant Lee Buffalo, Mighty Joe Moon; Sugar, FUEL. SINGLES Frank Black, ‘Headache’; Green Day, ‘Long View’; Oasis, ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’.

MUSIC VIDEO Beastie Boys, ‘Sabotage’ (uncut). FILMS Pulp Fiction/True Romance — Quentin strikes back. Oh, and Dazed and Confused maaaaan — totally Knievel. TELLY Melody Rules (for obvious reasons); Flying High With Flying Nun, the Roger Shepherd doco’ (for more obvious reasons). LIVE Saint Kristen Hersh; Beastie Boys. SPUNK/FOX Linda Fiorentino — seductive; Sandra Bullock — babelicious. EPITOME OF COOL Boddingtons Draught Ale; Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball; anything worth screaming “Knievel!” over. HANGERY Escape; Squid; bFM. EATERY Burger King. MAGAZINE Loaded — thanks for the mammaries (and the cerebral analysis of life’s finer points). DISCOVERY Gatorade for the dry horrors. NEW FOUND WISDOM “Go for glory.” “Leave before you arrive.” “The yellow raincoat always spells backwards.” TRAGI-COMIC HAPPENING The weekly meetings of LWA (Liggers With Attitude). GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF The year of haircuts. SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Kurt Cobain — apologies accepted; Straitjacket Fits; The Far Side. LOOK BACK IN ANGER Pox to that. Look forward and laugh loudly. FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION Originality. CHRIS BOURKE ALBUMS Dave Dobbyn, Twist, Richard Thompson, Mirror Blue; Wayion Jennings, Waymore’s Blues; Sid Selvidge, Twice Told Tales; Iris Dement, My Life; Lewis Cowdrey, It’s Lewis; Tony Bennett, Steppin’ Out. SONGS Dave Dobbyn, ‘lt Dawned On Me’; Sisters Underground, ‘ln The Neighbourhood’; Dawn Penn, ‘No, No, No’; Paul Kelly, ‘Song From the 16th Floor'; Al Green and Lyle Lovett, ‘Funny How Time Slips Away; Bonnie Raitt, ‘You’; Rolling Stones, ‘Moon is Up’; the Band, ‘Too Soon Gone’;* Prince, ‘Dark’. FILMS The Last Seduction; Red Rock West, Speed. BOOKS This Wheel's on Fire, by Levon Helm; The Miserables, by Damien Wilkins.

MAGAZINE The New Yorker, as edited by Tina Brown.

DISCOVERY Movieline critic Joe Queenan and his outrageous book of film profiles If You're Talking To Me, Your Career Must Be In Trouble (Picador). OLIVER GREEN ALBUMS The Notorious Big, Ready to Die; Wutang Clan, Enter The Wutang; Gangstarr, Hard to Earn; Nas, lllmatic; Pistol Grip, Pump, Volume 10. SINGLES Singles are a fucken rip off. Wait for the album. Singles are for record companies. MUSIC VIDEO Digable Planets, ‘9th Wonder’. FILM Menace II Society. TELLY Robot Masters (the 3D ninja-bot rules). . LIVE K Road on benefit day. SPUNK/FOX My only woman lover beauty in Bendons. PLONKER/MOLE You. HYPE FLOP

Snoopy Dogg; 90% of everything, everywhere, in every genre. EPITOME OF COOL New lyrics; big bags zig zags; tough beats; old men’s shoes; low budget. HANGERY Home; rope; bed. MAGAZINE New Zealand Herald. DISCOVERY Monogomy. NEW FOUND WISDOM You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose. Never eat anything bigger than your head. TRAGI-COMIC HAPPENING Models! No talent, all fluke. Get a skill and stop trying to get into the music industry. Cafe lifestyles. GLAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Working for a living. SAD TO SEE THE BACK OF Money from working for a living. LOOK BACK IN ANGER All the West Coast rap that sounds like one guy made the beats and wrote the lyrics for all of it. FUTURE REVIVAL PREDICTION It all comes back in the end; new McDonald’s menu.

ANDREW PALMER ALBUMS Man... or Astroman?, Destroy All Astromen! (Estrus) — 21 reverb ridin’, whammy shakin’ instrumental surf slammers; Link Wray, Rumble! The Best Of (Rhino) — the legend, expertly nailed as a purveyor of pure hacking filth. New Bomb Turks, Drunk On Cock (Engine): bashin’, beerfuelled, punk scorch, that doesn’t suck. Jack O’ Fire, The Destruction Of Squaresville (Estrus) — the winning antidote to Clapton-style bluzak. Teisco Del Rey, The Many Moods Of (Upstart) — super smooth surf guitar stylings from a Rat Fink fiend. A-Bones, Music Minus Five (Norton) — wailin’ action, Mr and Mrs America and all the ships at sea!;'6B Comeback; Golden Rogues Collection (Sympathy) — smokin’, post-Gibson Bros, rock ‘n’ roll demolition; The Cynics, Get Our Way (Get Hip) — superior garage rock, includes ‘l3 O’Clock Daylight Savings Time’ and ‘Lose Your Mind’. COMPILATION ALBUM ~ The Violence Inherent In the System (NKVD) — 22 fantastic Euro-rock bands starring Jalla Jalla, Wolfmen, City Kids, Nomads, Real Cool Killers, and Dead Allison's thunderous ‘Song For A Pretty Ass’. SINGLE Claw Hammer, ‘Malthusian Blues’ (Epitaph) — perhaps the best rock single for 20 years. No wonder Wayne (MCS) Kramer jams with 'em. MUSIC VIDEO . Didn’t see any, but put me down for anything with lotsa T&A. FILM High School Confidential, on TV. TELLY Lipstick On Your Collar, Who's Line Is It Anyway?-, assorted sport. LIVE Jon Spencer Blues Explosion were brilliant and fun; Redd Kross were fun. HYPE FLOP The All Blacks’ most . boring, inept season in decades. Mains should’ve been deep sixed. ■ EPITOME OF COOL Los Cramps. ; . MAGAZINE Forced Exposure; Radio On; Motorbooty; Flipside; Kicks; Smut Peddler! DISCOVERY ' The wailin’ wonders found on these killer comp’s: Monster Bop and Bad Boy (Buffalo Bop); Land Of 1000 Dunces (Candy); Frolic Diner and Girls In the Garage (Romulan); Turban Renewal (Norton); Rock ‘N’ Roll Orgy (Flesh Den); and several more throbbin’ beat stompers. NEW FOUND WISDOM The best extant rock bands are from Finland (eg. Dead Allison) and Japan (eg. Teengenerate).' FUTURE REVIVIAL PREDICTION Continued exploitation of the talented by the mediocre for the masses. Same as it ever was.