Heather

// I was formerly chronickiwi :)

OH, that explains everything. I've always been a fan. ;)

Well, you shouldn't let the big names put you off applying. From what I understand of the initial shortlisting process, the music is judged purely on its own merits - all the tracks are just played back-to-back without any additional identification. Obviously some bands are pretty easy to recognise, but this kinda implies it's good practice for an unknown radio-friendly band to apply regularly. Even if you're unsuccessful the first time or four, you increase your chances of getting funding out of familiarity. Frustrating as hell, but good practice.

& regardless of being old-school, it's just very nice to read a sensible topic-starter on what's regularly an inflammatory issue. what's your old username? Do I know you?

I just reread my post, & realised it's the circuitous route to agreeing with you. I guess my point is that it's an issue that's more up to government to change rather than NZOA themselves. The scope of their job is quite specific.

Single most intelligent NZOA opening post by a newbie ever. (applause)

Started doing a long post, but got kinda tired, sorry! The topic's been thrashed many times on the forums ever since nzmusic.com started. Here's my short version:

Firstly, take as read that NZOA's mandate is to have more kiwi music on commercial channels - their policy could be likened to what I've heard referred to as "the politics of presence" - the idea that if there are more kiwis on tv & radio, that's a good thing, and it will lead to...more kiwis on tv & radio. Officially they have absolutely no interest in content, genre, worthiness or financial state of the band, anything like that, just that kiwis get to watch and listen to more kiwis (although I'm pretty sure the staff have quite specific ideas about what they'd personally like to see more of). That's why it's ultimately up to commercial stations to have the final decision about who'll get funding - there's no point funding a band/song/album if noone's interested in playing it for lack of an audience.

With that in mind, the reason the already-well-known acts you mentioned are a success now is in no small part because of NZOA's work since their conception. And because of the increasing interest in kiwi music overall, as well as changes in industry climate, advent of the web & cheap creation/distribution methods, and so on, there has been a shift toward self-starters as well (and I suspect also a small part due to the aforementioned personal tastes of the staff) - indie bands & small labels get a much bigger chunk of the pie than they used to.

HOWEVER, since NZOA could now be viewed as a qualified success, and many bands & labels are likely to be viable without the extra funding, I think the more progressive nzmusic.com opinions have leant toward the same view as you - it'd be great if their mandate could be changed to promote more unknowns. Not sure how that'd work though.

BTW, NZOA don't receive any royalties on the $5000 video grants, but the larger album & phase IV grants are supposed to be paid back out of any profits.

and that's all I have time for right now, let the flaming begin!!!

I don't really have any idea what you're talking about, but it sounds really cool.

Hi! I'm still lurking.

I've no doubt that secure storage space for musical instruments would be great, but I'm not sure how many musicians would be so interested in paying for a dedicated room that stays mostly-empty for most of the week. I assumed the point of having a practice space was that you could just book it for two or three hours at a time, & with the dearth of practice spaces, that makes more sense to all parties (at least in my head).

That said, I guess it'd be pretty easy to encourage (& possibly provide some resources for) bands to organise room-pooling with three or four other bands.

Oh! Turns out it's online

...and this is Russell Brown's response, to which Steel scathingly refers in the footnote.

I think someone posted a zip file of old heads for download... however, you're allowed to upload any pic you want now. Just make sure you like it, at the moment there are a few problems with changing a pic once it's uploaded.

everyone knows the lack of 'people' is only heather having cut back her troll quota
Guilty as charged. JesusCrux's disappearance : demise of the boards = not a causal relationship, but there is a correlation. My work got busy.

Anyone complaining about foal's posts can go jump. There's nothing outlawing politics on the forums, and if the quota of political content is high, it's only because foal's making the effort when few else are.

I'm staging a comeback. It's gonna be a doozy.

The ad is Air New Zealand, the band (The Zephyrs with a y) is fictional, the song (Something New) was written by a couple of guys from the Screaming Meemees, and due to popular demand the single got released exclusively through Sounds, which is now defunct. Good luck with that though.

Oh, given australia's still included, and that they've cut off overseas traders like wainuiomata with what I assume are decent track records, I bet they're acting on legal advice.

& FWIW, it is crappy, and I can sympathise. I'm just playing devil's advocate because of the "how DARE trademe not sell to me!" sentiment. ;)

It's not even about stolen credit cards - I don't imagine many traders are actually registered to accept credit cards. No paypal either.

//but the point is that it's a personal decision,
Actually, it's not. I can choose who I buy from, but I don't have much control over who wins my auctions.

Granted, you're right about ebay making it work, & the only response I can think of is that it's probably a matter of scale. I don't know what kind of resources trademe would have/need to expand into a worldwide market. And if they're just catering to a handful of expats, again, I think you're just unfortunate that it's not a big enough market to justify the cost of a world of internet pranksters & 419ers. I also think you're making it unnecessarily personal suggesting that trademe think the rest of the world are "not good enough". I imagine the cold fact is that the overseas market proved not nearly lucrative enough to justify the extra costs of "focussing on bogus users" or perhaps "addressing the complaints of local traders dealing with people overseas". As for "us vs the rest of the world", there's probably an element of truth in that, but I imagine it's more the idea that trademe serves as an alternative to ebay - not a competitor. There's no need to go international because ebay already has it covered. Granted this is all entirely conjecture.

I have to say, my very first reaction to this thread was "...why would you want to?". Trademe's great for flathunting, buying cheap-as cars, & peddling your second-hand furniture & computers, but if you're overseas then .. making a payment that could potentially cost you 20 euros in bank processing fees, waiting a week for a delivery (meaning that it's over a week before you've worked out that there's been a fuckup), not to mention risking the occasional possibility that the merch was broken (in transit or beforehand), or not at all what you ordered? Meh.. I guess you'd have to pay duty & sales tax on merch purchased from any international site, but ebay's "global buying hub" does go into graphic detail about that sort of thing, and has many stern warnings about checking customs regulations.

Also, can I just ask - does trademe screen you by your IP address, or do they just require you supply a NZ-based address & phone number? I could imagine someone merrily trading away on the back of a friend's / their mum's contact details & out of their old university bank account without too much hassle. Is that feasible? That's what I'd do.

I'm doing some work for an e-commerce site that's had ongoing problems with an overseas "customer" persistently trying to buy merchandise with stolen credit cards. At the moment, the company is small enough to be able to spot the bogus orders before delivery, but obviously they want to reduce that burden on their staff, and are considering blocking an entire country's worth of IP addresses to prevent it. They don't really have the option of cutting off the entire rest of the world, nor would they want to.

In trademe's situation, and I'm purely guessing here, their much larger market would suffer these problems on a more widespread scale, and every dodgy customer directly affects another of their customer base. Not only do they then have a bunch of upset customers, the high activity on the site makes it very difficult to trace bogus accounts until after the damage is done.

Also, the nature of their business has always been vastly more conducive to trading with other people in the same vicinity. That's where the bulk of their market is, and speaking as an occasional trader, I wouldn't consider buying from an overseas trader, nor would I be particularly happy about selling to one. Even where both parties are genuine traders, the scope for error increases significantly, both in payment and delivery.

With all that in mind, I wouldn't be surprised if their percentage of valid overseas trading activity was actually lower than that from bogus overseas accounts. If that's the case, without putting too fine a point on it, it's kind of a no-brainer.

why use sport to grandstand political agendas?
This is exactly my opinion. The only comments I've heard from sportsmen on this also reflect this sentiment. One guy made a comment that if this particular Olympic games becomes a political no-holds-barred, then the athletes start coming under pressure to comment, or run the risk of being drawn as not caring, or even supporting whatever political issues they're refraining from commenting about. Most of them just want to train, travel, & compete.

If the political issues are so important (and for all the talk about "the spirit of the olympic games", it's always endeavoured to be politically neutral) then the athletes should boycott. I think refusing the invitation is a far more appropriate means of action than to accept the hospitality of the host, then attack them about matters entirely unrelated to sport.

Can someone please tell me what the exact wording is that we're complaining about? Is it the standard olympic policy, or are there additional restrictions demanded by China, and/or additional restrictions voluntarily introduced by NZ?

Adrian doesn't listen to music, he just stares at the cat sitting on his keyboard. I don't think it's moved in three weeks, & he's gotten grumpy from having to type around it.

DURAN DURAN!!!! DURAN DURAN!!!!!!

It's "pyrrhic", and you've got the usage right. However, we at nzm hq strongly encourage you to keep posting. Post it, and they will come. would be nice if your topic starters were a little clearer, but. ;)

People don't have power
Dude, speak for yourself.