Sorry 'bout that. New video lovin' is in the pipelines tho- our little army of winged rats are working 24/7 to get some new stuff up.
Hey Mindvandal, really stoked that you're keen to participate. We've actually negotiated a major revamp, including pretty much everything you (and Jet in other posts) have suggested. Some point soon we'll need some friends-of-nzmusic.com who are interested in being editors & feature contributors, so I'll be in touch. (Jet, foal30, harsh bloke & christianity, you guys are on my mailing list too)
H-Bomb, how is this post irrelevant or offensive? Because christianity disagrees with you? Most of his/her comments appear to have been written in the spirit of honest debate, so harden up already.
Er thats what I meant, yeah ;)
I was definitely not referring to Mrs Johns. I have not been a blithering fanboy since Neighbours days.
Few updates happening around the place, as you may have noticed:
- Interface/layout changes are underway. Hope to have these knocked off tonight so things won't move around to much after that (until the next update that is).
- Most noticable things - Logo/Navigation strip. Removed ad zone from here.User Menu/Search at top of page. User icons are now 90x90 pixels, but will show at smaller sizes in some areas.
- Righthand sidebar is chnaging a bit - navigation being phased out of this area.
- Tag Clouds introduced. More to come.
- Main section titles are bit clearer/simpler. Hopefully.
Ok so after an uncomfortable few days during the week, we've got the site over on a much needed new server (for the second time in 4 days!). We've blown the equivalent of a few music video grants in the process ;)
Many people noticed the site slowing down to a crawl in the week or so previously - this was due to the site growing faster than expected and it put pressure on the old server it was on to deliver more than it could. The hosting company placed limits on the slow requests meaning lost of "Page Not Found" errors started appearing (very annoying!).
Anyways - it's now in a cluster dedicated server environment with ample room to grow. In theory it should be quite fast to use. That said as we are still building lots of new features, there may be moments where things slow down for certain features that haven't been performance tuned. As developments settle down we will performance tune everything into shape. All said, I don't think you'll notice any slow downs - hopefully!
And just to celebrate new servers, we've launched Private Messaging! Yay! It can be found in your personalised navigation menu on the right hand side of the site, called "Messages".
Oh come on.... "neomuldoonesqe"? And I'm paranoid here? Wahahahaha
If you're really not trying to alienate me, then re-learn how to communicate. Apparently I speak "bollocks" like a propaganda'd up "zombie". Them's great words to win friends with.
I'm pretty sure even you can accept that it starts to smell a whole lot like an agenda when good ole christianity lays the NZonAir-debate-only-to-turn-on-Brendon forum trap.
Admittedly I regret posting a vaguely sympathetic response in the first place. Admittedly I prefer less ugly approaches, such as accepting the situation for what it is and then influencing some change (even here), instead of lighting the dog poo bag and leaving on the doorstep.
Good luck with your motif. I like you too, when you're not throwing poos.
I merely meant that choosing to attack some person directly, either personally or "professionally", is naive.
I don't disagree that much with what you have to say about NZonAir (and I stated my personal belief that its not my cup of tea) but if you choose to turn my comments into a reason to also alienate me then I think your basically a political child. Good luck with your agenda.
Brendon Smyth is an excellent person. I don't think there is any reason to attack him personally. It also undermines your point.
The Black Seeds are a band from Wellington, New Zealand.
Formed in 1998, The Black Seeds fuse dub, reggae and funk sounds to form a unique musical "party" sound. They usually perform with ten members, with instruments including vocals, guitar, saxophone, trumpet, bass, drums, bongos, keyboard, woodblock and more. The Black Seeds' lead singer Barnaby Weir is also the mastermind behind the sideproject Flash Harry, and the brainchild of Fly My Pretties, a collaboration of musicians from Wellington, New Zealand that only record their albums live. Former band member Bret McKenzie is also a member of international award-winning comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, and sideproject Videokid, as well as playing Figwit the elf in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. The Black Seeds have released four albums, Keep On Pushing (2001) and On The Sun (2003), a remix album Pushed, and Into the Dojo (2006).
I guess because there is an underlying philosophy to support commercial success (or evidenced potential of). Backing commercial "winners" not artists. A previously granted band has, in theory, more of a track record of commercial success.
Thats probably too simplistic, but thats how it comes out to me. Personally I think its all a minor waste of money.
Aw crap. That could be a tough one, definitely an oversight on our part. I'll see what the programmer types might be able to do.
In the meantime (and possibly long term) you can delete offending posts as I've upgraded you to moderator (again).
gotcha! Hopefully the chnages aren't oo annoying, and generally are small improvements each time. Plenty ahead! ;)
Heather - trust you don't mind, but I edited your post to have some wiki links for the 3 bands mentioned in the post. I thought it was the perfect example of how to integrate into a blog post.
Shihad is an alternative rock and post heavy metal band (with elements of Industrial Rock) originally from Wellington, New Zealand, formed in 1988 by vocalist Jon Toogood and drummer Tom Larkin, who were still in school at the time. In 1999 the band relocated to Melbourne, Australia, where three of the members currently reside.
The name "Shihad" was chosen after members of the band misheard "jihad" as "Shihad" in the 1984 David Lynch movie, Dune. Following the September 11 terrorist attacks the band decided to change their name due to the similarity between the band's name Shihad and the Arabic word jihad. At the 2002 Big Day Out music festival in Auckland, New Zealand they released t-shirts with 'Shihad' on them, and 'Remote' below, indicating that 'Remote' was to be the new name. However, due to this name being taken already, they settled on "Pacifier", which was a successful single from their album The General Electric.
Their next album under the name "Pacifier" was widely considered to be overproduced and not quite Shihad's style.
On 17 September 2004, the band announced to the world that they would change their name back to Shihad. To quote the band, "The events surrounding the name change and our choice to be known as Pacifier are well documented. As much as we believed in what we were doing, and the reasons for doing it at the time – the truth is we were wrong." On an appearance on the Australian Broadcasting Commissions TV show 'Spicks and Specks', Jon Toogood talked about how band members don't usually have to consider holy war when thinking of a band name.
In an interview on Stuff.co.nz, Jon Toogood spoke about an event that contributed to their decision:
"We were in America while it invaded Iraq and had to play at festivals that were supposedly `support the troops festivals' when we didn't believe in the war at all. That's what the song "All the Young Fascists" is about – the day we played Miami in front of 30,000 kids at this festival that was originally just a rock festival. A week out, just because of the timing, it was turned into the support the troops show and it was being simulcast live to Iraq. We were on this bill with these really ugly, what we call WWF metal bands, and we were shitting ourselves.
I just wanted to get out of there. Beside the stage was a paintball gun alley where kids were lining up to shoot effigies of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and (French president) Jacques Chirac. That was the weirdest one. The amount of times I actually pointed out to Americans the fact that their Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French and they were supposed to be mates."
The band name "Pacifier" was immediately raffled on the Australian radio station Triple J by Jay and the Doctor and was claimed by a little known band from Tasmania, Theory of Everything.
Shihad's latest album, Love Is The New Hate, was released on 2 May 2005 to good reviews and sales. In New Zealand the album went gold in its first week of release and debuted at number two on the charts. The material on the album was more political than that of previous efforts, due to the experiences that they had in the USA.
Shihad supported Love Is the New Hate initially with dates in New Zealand, including the massive launch concert in Auckland's Aotea Square and an extensive tour of Australia and New Zealand, including a spot on the main stage at Splendour In The Grass in front of an estimated 20,000 people. In August and September 2005, Shihad performed a seventeen date co-headlining tour of Australia with Australian band Cog, dubbed "The Homeland Security Tour".
Shihad were on a New Zealand tour with the The Datsuns during the Christmas/New Years period 2006/07, and supported Evanescence in part of their 2006/2007 world tour.
Shihad released a new album titled Beautiful Machine in April 2008.
Shihad's music has always been rooted in metal. The album Churn has a pronounced industrial influence. Killjoy is considered their heaviest release, with heavy distorted riffs. The General Electric incorporates a lot of electronics and reflects the nu-metal popular at the time. Pacifier can easily be considered post-grunge or nu-metal, but Love is the New Hate is a shift to more alternative and punk rock.
Head Like A Hole was a primarily Wellington band formed in 1991. The original lineup was:
Nigel Beazly (aka Booga Beazley) - Vocals
Nigel Regan (aka Datehole) - Guitar
Andrew Durno (aka Tallbeast) - Bass
Mark Hamill (aka Hideebeast) - Drums.
The band soon attracted the attention of Shihad manager (and former Flesh D-Vice frontman) Gerald Dwyer and after self-releasing the Shitnoise cassette in 1991 they signed to Wildside Records. Their "debutt" album 13 was released in 1992 and featured the single Fish Across Face. Later the same year they released the Beelzebeats EP. During this period the band was famous/infamous for appearing onstage in the nude (Regan and Hamill in particular). 1994 saw the release of their sophomore effort Flick Y'self Off Y'self which introduced elements of the home recording style that Nigel Regan would further explore with his side projects SML, Baconfoot and Hemi. The band embarked on a European tour with Shihad in 1995 with both bands signing to German label Noise, who released a split EP for the tour called The Happy Families EP. The EP featured a couple of tracks by each band as well as a track by SML - a group featuring Regan and Shihad's Jon Toogood and Tom Larkin that had formed circa 1992. The two groups spent several months living in Germany together and killed time by recording mostly humerous songs on 4-track. These songs would later be released as the Berlin Stench cassette and some would become the basis for songs on the next Head Like A Hole album, which would prove to be something of a bone of contention between the two groups in the future.
After returning home, guitarist Tom Watson (previously of Funkmutha and also a member of Baconfoot with Regan) joined the band as a touring guitarist in 1995, soon becoming a permanent member. After the band's triumphant performance at the 1996 Big Day Out, the band suffered a tragic blow with the drug-related death of manager Dwyer.
Recorded in Sydney, 1996's Double Your Strength, Improve Your Health & Lengthen Your Life was the group's first effort as a five-piece. Dedicated to the memory of Dwyer (as was Shihad's self-titled "Fish Album", released that same year), it saw the music taking a more straight ahead, "sleazy" Rock direction rather than their previously more experimental releases.
The band was also known as HLAH. The band broke up in 2000 and members have gone onto other bands including Cassette, Pluto and Grand Lodge.
This is an incomplete entry. If you have more information about Head Like A Hole please feel free to edit and add to this entry.
Winged rats reinstated comment summaries on forum index page and user profiles (under "Track")! Baby steps...
Lemme know if anything looks skewiff. Taking nominations for next priority.