The "yoof" in yrn was the death of it. "Yoof " radio is a kind of baby boomers dream that sounds very lame and suspicious to (for want of a better phrase but it will do ) the "gen x" generation. We know how painful it is to have "yoof music " marketed to us by people who really are just trying to recapture an idealised version their own youth.

BUT HEY national public access radio is a great idea. I wish people who get hung up on the "yoof" bit would get over it. So an YRN may possibly suck for a few years but imagine having that frequency to play with. Imagine if it got into the hands of truly progressive, revolutionary people, it would be fucking amazing.

Commercial radio sucks period and every year it hits a new low. The b-net stations 1) aren't what they used to be and 2) some of the more important ones have bled listeners while failing to gain new ones and 3) despite trying to coordinate nationally will never have the clout of a public station that could GO EVERYWHERE, every small town in New Zealand. Lets get a public airwave now before they're all gone.

"and even though i can't stand Nickleback as much as the next poster on these boards, I thought they were a much better band then the Stones. The Stones, while a fun show, were as loose as fuck. "

This is just a bad comment, Nickleback were bordering on "spinaltapishness" the whole set, although Im glad to here you used up all the fluid in your lighter.

The Stones played a collection of songs that would have to be the strongest set I've ever seen period, they are and always have been a loose band. Keith is a loose rhythm player who is backed up by a one of the smartest (and under rated) pop drummers ever. Tightness and mushushunshup is not a prerequisite for great music, remember punk 101. Admittedly the Stones lost a lot of live dynamic when Mick Taylor left the band & Ronnie is stuck playing other peoples guitar lines, Stadium rock is a bad idea that makes a lot of money fast , Speedway rock (Western Springs,Altamont) is worse and hey theyre getting on, but man that was a lesson in spirit and GREAT SONGS on Sunday Night, Nickleback&cmon dude dont make me cry. I thought you were a man of wealth and taste, well ya know taste at least.

I really, really, really , really suggest you start reading other books, like perhaps science books.

Actually admittedly some of the bible isn't that ambigious, like this great bit,

"Leviticus "20:10 And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

Ya know some people freak out at the sound of fingernails on a board and some don’t. Some people’s ears suck in noise , for others noise is a magnet that pulls their ears where ever it is, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Most of the problems of noise today is the huge low end frequencies modern stereos can give out, especially when bouncing off other buildings. Many times the source seems a lot more innocent than the sound it delivers half way up the road. I’m kind of on both sides of the fence here, thrashed music loud in my teens, can’t sleep through it in my twenties..and I’ll call noise control if I need to , not because I want to , more than it’s absolutely impossible to sleep through these frequencies and when I can’t sleep, I go crazy . It’s not a question of tolerance for some people , it’s sanity.

right mate, some facts
1) Telecom is a private company.
2)Air New Zealand was a private company that failed miserably ,the government bailed it out largely to make sure its didn't take large chunks of other local enterprise with it. Remember your friends at act wanted it to go down the toilet so the free market could decide who would carry our exports , the only problem was that the free market didn't want to step into what was obviously a financial disaster. Under an act government we would have had no national airline, think about it business school guy, an island economy with no national airline solely dependent on Quantas and Singapore Airlines.

That, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax
system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit
from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy,
and they just may not show up at the table anymore.//

Come on pal, you know the flaw in this. If the tenth man doesn’t show up, ie participate in the economy, there will be a new tenth man who will show up….there’s a huge queue of people trying to be enterprising, trying to build wealth, people starting new business all the time, most of them get stopped by the huge “barriers to entry” the tenth man usually sets up. On this site for instance there are numerous independent labels who simply have no show off breaking into the radio/retail/multinational record company financial lockdown that dominates most music industries including this one. (Funnily enough despite this cozy arrangement majors still bleed money.) I really wish the big companies in music would walk away from the music dinner table so the music industry could be truly innovative gain as opposed to the constant stale rehash of ideas and bands that dictate major label signing policy.

Start dealing with detail. Think how many budding entrepreneurs would love to have a shot at providing the services of our biggest company “Telecom”?

But hey says Jesus crux “Telecom is the tenth man, don’t hate him.” Its not a matter of hate, it’s a matter of fairness. Telecom will show up at the dinner table forever because it’s a highly lucrative dinner party for them, in fact they are desperately trying to remove diners from the dinner table. Lets face it their ultimate goal is to own the restaurant. They want to be the market. And what is telecom? On one hand its an economic winner that has skillfully delivered the goods and services we need and has put its competitors out in the cold through shrewd business practice, on the other hand it’s a huge near monopoly that bullies the market and government with its size in order to keep its profit margins up. Taxing and regulating companies in a market driven economy helps shape the playing field and helps deliver capital to areas that private enterprise has real trouble delivering across the board accountable services,( health and education are the obvious).Think detail.

, most likely because youse haven't studied macroeconomics. youse believe that taxing the rich will solve poverty when it is in fact entrepreneurship that allows the economy to prosper by increasing overall production//

Come on be fair, there is no general political,academic or scientific consensus on economics. The right wing pretend that right wing economic theory is the only sensible way then when pushed into detail come out with scenarios that are absolutely half baked and regressive, (I love Don Brashs speech some years back when he envisaged a society where thousands of unemployed people would line up every morning up at the post office waiting for an offer of work). Is that an efficient way to run a labour market? No. Will Don ever have to remotely envisage lining up? No. Fuck off Don.

Modern Economics is sometimes useful in describing events that have already happened but they are particularly useless in serious prediction .Economists constantly fail to predict huge economics shifts like stock market crashes. Why? Because it’s a fucking complex economic world out there. If we have learnt anything about modern economic reality it is learn to be ready for the unpredictable. Having an unregulated economy makes it very difficult to move resources to parts of the economy that need immediate fiscal attention. For example under Act Richard Prebble advocated the bankruptcy of Air New Zealand which would have left us ,an island nation, without a National Airline for an undefined period. A great free market idea in fantasy land, a fucking disaster in reality.

Well freedom is something we constantly work at, freedom is the ability to enjoy a life that gives you the opportunity to do what the fuck you want, when you want as long as it doesn’t screw up other people. Conceptually we have that right but its pretty fragile and it constantly gets suppressed by right wing economics that put huge pressure on its populace to work harder, sleep less and pay more and more respect and grant more and more power and prestige to its wealthier citizens who in turn take great delight in telling us how lazy we all are,( thank you the roundtable).Freedom is not evoked by economic conditions that make us work long hours in order to gain economic superiority over our fellow citizens.

illegitimate children? Used napkin? What the hell has that got to do with issues of freedom

O.K so lets get some transparency around this debate. While I understand there are a number of posts from people who have an “understandable” vested interest in keeping on the right side of the B-net and C4 (the music industry is all about kissing arse, even good people have to do it) it kind of drags away from the debate, “Are these people talented broadcasters?” The “kill bill” comment from our bfm host was a shocker .In a sea of dumbed down lowest common dominator Auckland commercial radio and biased right wing news services bfm is the last truly independent unbiased and objective media services in Auckland with some kind of profile. I don’t know Camilla but having watched her couple of times on C4 openly criticizing some of the programmers poor selections (Eskimo Joe and Cream on Intellectual property spring to mind) and listened to her drive shows I think she’s smart , has guts and fights a good fight.” Is she a talented broadcaster? Yes. Is she capable of holding down the biggest independent radio show in Auckland? I’d say no. In a year that’s shaping up to be a election year shocker (Kiwis/Iwis billboards anyone) we need bfm to hit back hard with some rational freethinking debate, BFM plays great music and sometimes even champions it but its more than a music station, it’s a voice of free rational speech (and fantastically progressive and ignored music, same thing really ) and if you think that’s a problem in Auckland go listen to Leighton Smith for 10 minutes.

The C4 presenters are a different kettle of fish , they’re hands are tied by the wisdom of their programmer and while its nice to see the late night play lists (read graveyard T.V time with the viewership consisting of probably no more people than the posters on this thread ) have a degree of freshness to them many of the shows are hampered by strict MTV corporate style demographic repeat playlists (read don’t play the kids the good stuff, play ‘em obvious droll top 40 stuff, don’t take risks). The rotate on I.P is even more frustrating, but you can’t blame C.M for that. I think Clarke and co have a tough job.Its hard for any presenter to present safe playlists without looking like a passionless regurgitator of what the CEOs of the 4 major record companies (who dominate music media) want you to hear (and buy) .It becomes plainly obvious that most of the presenters feel a little compromised by the blandness of presenting a very controlled top 40 that is basically derived from even safer commercial radio charts.

oh plizzzzze,

gluepot rip, plizzzze get your facts right. You're like an embarassing uncle at a wedding telling everybody what's hip. There's is no Vines v Datsuns debate, antipodean music is not "in" at the moment..in fact coming from down under is still a crime against culture to those NME lame bedsit journalists (read the article..they're amazed anything good could come from N.Z) , but the datsuns are on the cover, the guys who were playing small pubs in N.Z eight months ago. A victory for the small guy..plizzzzze don't knock it just because your oldtime (credible but different story,different time) faves recieved such coldness at the hands of such a slow (but sadly influential) press. Johnny Thunders influencing the top 40 in the U.K, sounds like heaven. Go to a new pub.

As far as I can remember Radio Active has always had a problem with the worthiness of rock music say in comparison with dub, reggae, electronica. It's a strange liberal stance that does seem to perpetuate itself when people convince themselves they understand popular culture
but more are trying to add a sense of hipness to their dry intellectualisation of everything. Rock n roll is attitudal, snotty and irreverent while Dub and reggae is traditionlist, passive and intellectually trendy. The problem is that pop culture growth suffers from the likes of radio active think. Look, the Black Seeds are a boring, say nothing, chilled out glorified mini-ub40 dance band that your mum and dad will love while paselode are gritty and abrasive. Yet one is seemed to be more "cutting edge" than the other.

"Bailterspace, Shihad, The Nixons, The Dead Flowers, Head Like a Hole... all these amazing bands, " - foetusboy

Most of the bands above that you mention got ground down by an unreceptive wider music industry. Touring is hard financially and emotionally on a band. Bands get to a level when they need to have other avenues going.

"In short, it's obvious radio is just one piece in the puzzle"
Once you've built a fanbase it's the only piece left in less you want to slog it out on the road forever. I agree with you identifying the mid-90's as an exciting live period and I don't think todays bands compare well. Radio has slowly been forced to play more N.Z music (a good thing) but
has set up criterias for airplay that seem to be producing a blandness amongst our year 2002 N.Z bands and ignoring the good oil (again) because they side with MOR over originality every time. But Yay the datsuns...this is a case of point of a band winning over overseas major league record companies and a fat advance to boot before the slow dinosaur heads of the local radio scene knew they existed. I wish we could showcase all our cool bands to london record company fatcats before they got put through the "bland" machine of the local radio and record industry.

"anyway how do pragrammers know what people will like, are they psychic? they tell listeners what they should like and then claim to represent the mainstream listener while the poor kids just keep on listening 'cause they havn't heard anything better.
It's a 'viciouse cycle' of musical mediocrity that will eventually fall in on itself. " -rdor

This is the real problem. N.Z Commercial programmers are the most conservative narrowminded music (fans?) in the world. Up to now it's been useful to have the likes of Stellar and the feelers to at least give them something to get their head around and actually get them used to the idea of looking at local content. But ya can't use programmers tastes to determine the direction of new zealand music, even commercial music. Let's face it these people would have turned down
Beck, Nirvana, Enimem....if they had been new zealand artists without any track record. They shit themselves at the thought at having to have
music taste so they happily recommend Bush soundalikes The feelers or Garbage soundalikes Stellar or the whole current "matchbox 20" Breathe/zed/ augustino crap that seems to be getting funding now.
I understand NZOA's initial conservatism say 5 years ago when there was no play for anyone but the picture is different now. Commercial radio programmers are the fucking problem not part of the solution. If you actually did a poll on them you'd find them to be predominantly
white male middleclass 45 + year olds who have come up through the ranks of a stale radio industry rather than from any musical background. And they know what da kids like?