Monday 15 August 2011

Issue 1

Dear Tauranga Music Idiots.

I wrote this zine a number of months back - I was severly disillusioned with the Tauranga scene or lack there of so I took the old DIY punk route and wrote a crappy little zine covering the main points about Tauranga Music and why it sucked. Because my zine was banned from the retail outlet where I used to leave it for public consumption I have decided to reprint Issue 1 here so that you may read it and try to understand where I was coming from. As you will see, initially I didn't really want to slander any of the local bands outright by naming names and ragging on you fucks too much. It's not entirely your fault that you suck so much - most of my disgust was directed towards the sad state of the scene as a whole. We have no real venues, the fans that do come out and see local music only do so if they are already friends with the bands - these fans have really limited palattes, don't you strive to do something daring and original without these stunned mullet fucks gawping at you with the dumb fuck 'what just happened? play some GnR' eyes , out of town acts rarely make their way here anymore it's like they know that we have been tarnished with the musical plague and if on the off chance they do come then none of us go out and see them anyway, there are more covers and jam bands than those playing originals how fucking sad is that - is progress playing Rage Against the Machine covers? and why does it get a better reaction?, our original bands just aren't very original, I've been guilty of it - we don't just reference our favourites we seem hell bent on imitating them!, worst of all as bands we insist on glad handing each other and saying how great we all are and yet none of us go and see each others bands when we have a gig on because we all know how insipid it all is even if we are too scared and or polite to say so, and the media is a joke - you may hate my negative nancy thoughts but at least I'm actually writing about local music and not living in the past and or sucking up to my jazz fat cat pals. So yeah that's the condensed version of my gripes that spanned 4 zines and which I was just about to finish doing because I was sick and tired of this rubbish scene, my sanctimonious 'know it all' ideals (I am to blame just as much as anyone here), the understandable lack of readership (it is a very niche market after all) and all you whiny, faggot, overly sensitive musicians but now before I move to the country to strum my banjo and tend my cattle I might just have one more zine and a couple of baiting tweets left in me because you are all proving yourselves to be far queerer than what I originally thought but hopefully by directing your hurt feelings and hate towards me and my little zine you may be able to build towards something greater, you may access true emotion and originality, you may be able to build that scene in Tauranga that I always wanted but was to cynical and lazy to actually follow through.Go on kids, run out and play....  



ZINE 1:



Every music scene has some unspoken unifying bond. Seattle had a bunch of moaning, long haired poofs too gay to actually cut trees but still wearing logging attire playing a mix of punk and metal that eventually got diluted into the wank that is now known as Pearl Jam. L.A’s, semi, NO! fully retarded big haired, get laid psuedo musicians pumped out a party hard brand of metal that appealed to fat chicks and fags and sucks to this day and will continue to suck in perpetuity. In Manchester everyone called each other geezer and played in dance infused bands that would later go on to influence Oasis – cunts. No one had clothes in San Francisco and they all wore crabs in their pubic hair. Closer to home; Auckland bands wear Miley Cyrus jeans and think they’ve made it when their Kings of Leon sounding music video of them looking pensive in fedoras gets played on C4 and some fat chick at one of their concerts offers the lead singer a hand job ignoring the fact that C4 sucks and the chicks fat and a whore who would give your mum a hand job if she were in a band and a fedora. Wellington has a real bad infestation of gluten free, dairy free, taste free, talent free, muffin eating, cardigan wearing, bicycle riding, environment saving, miserable, liberal, pretentious hipsters playing a wide range of music that all manages to sound the same – ball-less and soul-less. Dunedins got history. All the bands in Christchurch have been crushed or are playing in a seismic crater. And Taurangas musicians are no exception….what’s their ‘unspoken, unifying bond’ you ask? Well Tauranga music just plain sucks…..





The bands:



Whether you’re in one of the many ‘I was a bullied geek in school but now I’m a respected tough guy because I have long hair and an ill kept goatee’ death metal bands or a mohawk weilding, 1977 dreaming, anarchy, espousing, stud brandishing  punk rocker sadly unaware of the true ethics of punk playing a horrible mash of 90’s skater punk with a John Lydon sneer or perhaps you might be the big bunch of saddos that don’t realise that even the grunge bands were ashamed by what their sound became or just some christian douche bag ripping off John Mayer, strumming his gay little acoustic guitar, pretending he is way deep and far more emotionally capable than what he actually is so that in a highly transaparent way he can get his dick sucked from some quixotic little piece of ass or alternately some old fucker failing to realise that his glory years have well and truly passed him by and still trying to rock out when he should just start playing jazz and blues or your some old cunt playing jazz and blues that doesn’t realise that he isn’t black and therefore not qualified to play those genres of music or you’re a no talent hack calling yourself a musician when you just play other peoples insipid songs to a bunch of booze fueled idiots yelling at you to play some ‘Exponents’ in a gay bar in a gay town on a gay Saturday night  and thinking you’ve reached the pinnacle of the music industry or your some fag one man band unable to find anyone willing to play your amatuerish  dross ripping off the entire history of weird outsider music in order to get your insufferable music played by someone that’s not your mum or your in a reggaae band – ‘hey REG you’re GAY’ or your just starting a band in Tauranga and you think that you have real potential and that your gonna make it big just as soon as the other musicians and music fans hear your derivative songs or your in high school and you have real talent but you know that you’re gonna leave Tauranga as soon as you get the chance so you never play in this sub par town therefore depriving those that would actually appreciate what you do from hearing it or you think you’re Mr Bungle but you actually just sound like Jethro Tull if they played an incoherant jumble of every genre imaginable in one song that goes for 50 minutes, progression nah just regression or you play in a garage and start a new band every two weeks that never plays live unless you count that party you put on that wasn’t really a party at all but a BBQ that no-one came to and those that did just talked over you anyway or you have a band with real potential and you debut but everyone is apathetic and you think it’s because your pathetic so you never play again but in actuality you were real good, the plebs just didn’t like you because you didn’t play any ‘Exponents’ songs. Whatever you play, who ever you are, where ever you do it if you’re a band from Tauranga you suck.   



The venues:



Every great scene has numerous venues where bands can play. Tauranga has 2, they are not great.



“Dear Editor, I’m new to Tauranga and I’d really like to see some fresh live music where should I go?”



Well if you like dubstep, covers, reggae, jazz, death metal then go to any bar on a Friday/Saturday night in the CBD and you’ll find something that should satisfy your limited tastes.



“Nah, I like good music”



Well, occassionally Brewers Bar has a touring band come through…we had Jimmy Barnes over New Years, yes the Jimmy Barnes!!!! Wow!!!! And about 4 years ago DIE! DIE! DIE! Played in front of a monster crowd of 5 people. 2 of whom were local alcoholics oblivious to the music and the fact that their livers are about to explode.



“Barnes sucks and what about recently, do no good bands stop in Tauranga? And what about the locals?”



Well DIE! DIE! DIE! Returned mid last year at this trendy, christain inhabited bum hole called Major Toms. Which would’ve been great but noise control spent longer writing their cease and desist notice than the band got to play. Other than them there was the Dead Moon in 2002 and the 3Ds in the mid 90’s. And the locals – ha!



“So if I want to see good music, what do I do?”



Move towns.



Album reviews:



Typical Talentless Crap by Just Another Useless Tauranga Band.



‘Typical Talentless Crap’ is the debut album from Tauranga’s finest exponents of reggae, dub step, jazz, death metal infused Exponents songs ‘Just Another Useless Tauranga Band’. Made up from members of the equally terrible ‘We Played, We Sucked and We Come From Tauranga’ and the atrocious ‘Tauranga Musicians United Against Musical Excellence’ features Dingus on Drums, Cunnilingus on Bass, Funnelingsemanintomythroatandnoseingus on Lead Guitar and Tunnelingintogapinganusingus on Guitar and Vocals. These hacks unskillfully and seemlessly switch between the incredibly untuneful to the absolutely embrassingly, painful, sometimes within the same song but mostly just within every verse. The lyrics are cliched, the production non existent, the members look and act like proto pastiches of your favourite rock demi-gods, the instrumentation has all the ability of a primary schooler playing a kazoo and strangely the album cover just features a warning label stating ‘Parental advisory recommened as this contains material that may offend the ears of those who appreciate music’. Unmatched in Tauranga by their sheer lack of power and talent ‘Just Another Useless Tauranga Band’ looks set to conquer the rest of the Western Bay of Plenty such as the musically deficient strong holds of Te Puke, Katikati and Maketu within no time. If tempted to use this CD  as a beer coaster, do not! It isn’t worthy.     





Gig review:



The Predictables with support from Heard It All Before live at Krazy Jacks.



Not wanting to spend a minute longer than what I absolutely had to in the dingey shit hole that is Krazy Jacks, Taurangas premier (by virtue of the fact that they are the only) live music venue I arrived deliberately late therefore missing nearly all of Heard It All Before. Two squat loser geek fucks that I probably stole lunch off in high school (not that they needed it by the looks of things) greet me at the door asking for ID. I offered my fist. Entrance was granted. I made my way to the bar but decided not to drink incase I got hepitits from one of the filthy regulars. Heard It All Before noticing my disdain and the audiences ambivalence to their musdick kindly finished without assaulting my ears for too long. I leant back and waited for The Predictables to set up. I needed a piss but figured I would probably get man raped in the toilets so I held it in. One of the members of Heard It All Before joined me at the bar waiting for service that would never come for his overpirced, borderline flat beer. He turned and looked at me for validation for his bands efforts. I couldn’t stomach the thought of such affirmation. So, I looked at the ground for awhile until I finally decided to give him some feedback. “Hey man I just wanted to tell you that your music is atrocious, no I mean that I’m not just saying that because I’m sober and haven’t been drinking. I truly from the bottom of the heart mean that. You are just the crappest band I have ever heard. Your songs sound like any pub band I have ever heard. You have top of the line equipment but somehow it fails to mask your many flaws. Your look is so generic and I just want to punch you for being such wannabe douche bags. Your songs have no hooks, no kick, no originality, no balls, all I hear is white noise. I think you won’t go very far and advise you to stop with all the bad work. No seriously I totally mean that – you suck, I hate you. Fuck off. Die.” And with that pep talk I slapped him on the back and let him go off to finally put an end to his teenage dreams and follow his true calling in life as a brick layer. The Predictables still hadn’t set up. An hour had past. Stadium rock bands set up in less time. Finally they started. The words rotting corpse, sewerage system, tokoroa and Jo Cotton immediately sprung to mind. Song 1 finished and the crowd of 3 people immediately sprung into a spontaneous chant of non-core, non-core, non-core. But unabated the Predictables continued. Till that is… I hopped on stage unloaded my now aching bladder all over their amps, sound board, power leads, faces so that their gear and gig was ruined. I fried my balls off. But took one for the team thus saving Tauranga from another band in a long line of bands that shouldn’t exist. Cunts.   







The fans: To have good bands, you must also have good fans, without the Dead Heads, The Grateful Dead would have just been Jerry Garcia soloing out of his gourd for 70 minutes each show, while everyone hit the bar. No Bromley Contingent to add substance and power to their vitriolic subversion of The Sex Pistols, well they would’ve just been the Yardbirds with worse haircuts. And Tauranga has its fans of reggae, dub step, exponents covers and jazz but there in lies the problem….



With no one liking good music in Tauranga, how can we expect there to be good bands being produced in this region? Why would the best bands extend their tour to here if no one is going to come out to see them? It won’t happen. How does the next generation of potential musicians get exposure to what’s  cool hip and wild when their brothers brothers still listen to Korn? They’re fucked.



Problem is that Tauranga is a city driven by psuedo yuppies who cannot make it in the larger cities like Auckland so they strive to turn what was once a lovely little beach town into a cafĂ©, mall, nightclub driven miniture version of the city they couldn’t make it in. Anyone with sense and intelligence leaves as soon as they are legally able to and they are not getting replaced by other enlightened types coming to this cultural utopia. Anyone else that remains probably falls into the category of drunk, dumb or thug – they have no room for music; good or bad. They are too busy producing ugly kids which they can then put in a washing machine or run over with a piece of shit V8 bought on credit in their own drive ways. The rest are at the beach or getting laid or both. Fuck them – good music is way more important.





The Soloution:



Young, usually tertiary educated types are the ones that are responsible for culture in a city, however if that means that Tauranga should have a fully functioning university replete with toga wearing, couch burning dick heads keeping me up all night with their cries of ‘lets go to town…come on lets go to town’. Then I’ll live without. The polytech is bad enough.  



If it’s actually dismal weather that is responsible for the music then fuck that, I like my sunshine and flowers.



If it’s a few old cunts that have seen the world, heard the sounds and want to pass on their knowledge to a younger generation then bah no one cares what the elderly have to say and fuck balls does Tauranga need any more hospital clogging, noise complaining, life endangering old people.



So the soloution? Well if your own scene sucks, invent one.



Issue 2: Tauranga suddenly has new bands, venues and poon up to our eyeballs. How? Imagination bitch…




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