Just wanted to add a word or two about Eddie Rayner - there seems to be a distinct lack of info regarding his work since the ENZSO successes. I was lucky enough to catch an ENZSO concert earlier this year and it took me a few weeks to recover! What a mind-blowing experience....
I have also been fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to mercilessly pick Eddie's brains regarding our music awards in the Bay of Plenty in NZ, which have recently begun again last year after a 5 yr hiatus. I am a committee member and co-ordinator, and thanks to Eddie's patience and tolerance of my very stooopid questions, we managed to get the thing off the ground again, and the finalists for Best Song and Best Production to him last year to judge - he did a superb job of course! He has agreed to assist as a finalist judge again this year, along with Midge Marsden and Liam Ryan (ex Narcs) - so we are fortunate indeed to have such support. Eddie's name certainly does move people within the industry - he commands enormous respect as a musician and producer, and is also a very honest guy, lots of integrity, and obviously as intelligent as he is talented. So, thanks Ed for your help and continued support of NZ music in the provinces - you are very very much appreciated here in the Bay of Plenty and, no doubt, all over NZ as well. Keep tapping them keys please!
Posts: 38 | Location: Auckland, New Zealand | Registered: 22 August 2001
I'd like to put all of my hands up as well as the "hands" belonging to my dog, our 2 cats, and the 7 stray cats outside.
Deb
<frenzwebmistress>
Posted
ps: he can have his own forum if he'd like OR he can post here. Otherwise, he'd fit into OTHER with his solo stuff, and that may not make him feel very good! Eddie, just tell me what you want, and you got it!
Personally, if I could talk to Eddie, I would tell him (and I bet he already knows) that Phil Judd's experiences should not be treated as a model for anybody else's experiences. I'm hoping Eddie would enjoy himself enough to stay or at least come around now and then.
That's not what I meant, Deb... aaaaahhh never mind, it's late here and I need some zeds.
The antipodean sense of humour is a strange one, mine perhaps stranger than many (Stanger than Fiction? Haaahahahaaahaha, but it IS "Full of shades and echoes", now that I come to think of it).
Judging on what Splitz has told me about Eddie's sense of humour, and how that gels with my own impressions on meeting him years ago, I'd say that he'll understand where both of us are coming from, Deb. If he ever logs on, that is!!!!!
Posts: 1933 | Location: Somewhere west of Brisbane, Australia | Registered: 20 March 2001
Well I can only say it would be a huge honour for me. I was the chick in college (an American in America in the early 1990s don't forget) who ran around making tapes for all the other music majors that I thought were Eddie's best piano bits. I was trying to show a group of people who only knew "I Got You" that the band was more talented than that, and that the piano player's technique and way of thinking would blow their minds. Many a music major's mind was blown. So this would be extra exciting for me!!!!
Was the freakout bit in "Bullet Brain and Cactus Head" in there, by any chance? The piano intro to "Message to my Girl", perhaps? (You wouldn't still have a copy of that tape, would you, Deb? Just so's you can tell us all what was on it and we can rush off and burn CDs of same... (heh heh heh, for uses of personal review only of course...)
Posts: 1933 | Location: Somewhere west of Brisbane, Australia | Registered: 20 March 2001
No copies that I have... I can email old college pals to see if they kept theirs!!! But mostly I remember putting on (in no particular order):
Crosswords Late Last Night The Woman Who Loves You Straight Old Line Pioneer Walking Down A Road I See Red probably Bullet Brain and Cactus Head
Message To My Girl wouldn't have made it since even I could play that opening piano bit. You have to find the REALLY good stuff to impress the piano-centric music majors.
Most of us can play "Fur Elise" on the piano, too, Deb, but that doesn't make Beethoven any less of a genius...
Good call on "The Woman Who Loves You", though. Loved the part in that. And probably the live versions of "Message", and the piano solo in the middle at that, were where Eddie really struck true greatness in that song... But I won't argue with a music major, not when my own musical training was so long ago I can hardly remember the names of the instruments...
Posts: 1933 | Location: Somewhere west of Brisbane, Australia | Registered: 20 March 2001
The Americans may use the term slightly differently, Silke, but as I understand it, "major" simply refers to the main component of your course, for example I did a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double "major" - Journalism and Psychology (which makes me... overqualified for most of the jobs I apply for!) It's not to do with the level of the degree. At least that is the way we "Aussies" understand it, and how we use the term. The Americans have different words for things (for example, after high school I went to "university" and Deb went to "college"... which basically amounts to the same thing) so it gets very confusing at times even for those of us whose first language is English... (then again, I have had an American ask me, in all seriousness, "Do you speak American where you come from?" The answer, "Yes, but only as a second language!!")
Well, well....! Seems like Mr R is appreciated all around the globe,not just in good ol' NZ! Hopefully, he will pop in one of these days and say g'day to everybody - fingers crossed. And with posts like the ones you have all thrown in here the last couple of days, how could any sane, caring, responsible, sensitive human being resist??? .......hehehehehe.......
So I would just like to add my plea to Eddie to join in, even if briefly, and let people know he is still out there making that awesome music - stunning stuff!
Splitz
Posts: 38 | Location: Auckland, New Zealand | Registered: 22 August 2001
I realise I'm a bit off-topic and I apologise to myself, but let me clear up the uni/college thing. Here, we are told that a higher learning institution offering one set of specialisations, for lack of a better word, is a college. A university, I'm told, is called that because it is one larger body offering a number of colleges. For example, I went to Tufts University. You could be in the Liberal Arts college, College of Engineering, Dental School, Law School, Medical School, School of Law and Diplomacy, Veterinary Medicine, and so on. But they are all part of Tufts University. So I have a Bachelors of Arts in Music degree. Sorry to be off topic!!!
heeeheee!
