Remembering Martin Phillipps on East FM, Saturday from midday
As a Gen Xer and NZ music enthusiast, it’s taken these days to comprehend the loss of Martin Phillipps, who died last Sunday aged 61. That’s too young, but what an extraordinarily full life, with a significant chunk of it on the road playing his music of The Chills to audiences in this country and across the planet.
As an indie-rock band out of Dunedin, and for its Kiwi fans (us Gen Zers), it has always been a great source of pride that one of ours generated attention abroad.
They attracted fans everywhere, and the only time I met him was on foreign soil at a venue, The Orange, at Islington, in London, around 1996. Our band had a gig upstairs in the acoustic room, while The Chills were headlining in the main room below. Sound check times overlapped and we talked while waiting around. They were road warriors, on one of their many UK and European tours.
I remember seeing them at the late-great Gluepot here in the late 1980s, too, the last NZ gig before heading overseas for the first time to fly the flag for the Dunedin Sound.
Martin Phillipps will be missed. A great New Zealander who accentuated our national character in all his eccentricities. The legacy he leaves with us is priceless, music so vast in quantity and lush in quality, and those who were fortunate enough to acquire a taonga from recent online sales of his legendary pop-culture collection know they now possess a wonderful connection to a man that showed the world what Kiwis can do. And acquire.
There are many of Phillipps’ and The Chills songs that are part of our national cultural DNA, the soundtrack to the Gen Xer life – I Love My Leather Jacket, Heavenly Pop Hit, Pink Frost, Kaleidoscope World, Doldrums, Rolling Moon – and recent albums, Snow Bound (2018) and Scatterbrain (2021), are regular favourites, especially the driving song Complex:
I’m not the man you think I am
I’m a complex piece of the plan…
Essential viewing: One of the best music documentaries is The Chills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillipps, made in recent years and telling the story of a determined Kiwi bloke driven to take his music to the world, and of a band that must have the record for most members over four decades. And at the end, he and they were at their most settled and enjoying the most original of NZ indie rock n’ roll. – PJ
I’ll be playing music by The Chills on tomorrow’s She’ll Be Right on Saturdays Show with PJ Taylor, midday to 4pm on East FM, East Auckland’s fair-dinkum community-powered public service radio station, on 88.1FM and 107.1FM on local frequencies, nationally and globally at www.eastfm.nz... and on app iHeart Radio.
Photo: Martin Phillipps in the 1980s. Page 293 in John Dix's book Stranded in Paradise, the History of NZ Rock n' Roll 1955-1988.
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Worst Xmas ever?
There's a a lot of planning that goes into Christmas day and sometimes things just don't go to plan. But it can be a good thing - a family mishap or hilarious memory that you can laugh about in Christmases to come.
Whether you burnt the dinner or were stranded at an airport...
Share your Christmas mishaps below!
⚠️ DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS. If you love them, don't leave them. ⚠️
It's a message we share time and time again, and this year, we're calling on you to help us spread that message further.
Did you know that calls to SPCA about dogs left inside hot cars made up a whopping 11% of all welfare calls last summer? This is a completely preventable issue, and one which is causing hundreds of dogs (often loved pets) to suffer.
Here are some quick facts to share with the dog owners in your life:
👉 The temperature inside a car can heat to over 50°C in less than 15 minutes.
👉 Parking in the shade and cracking windows does little to help on a warm day. Dogs rely on panting to keep cool, which they can't do in a hot car.
👉 This puts dogs at a high risk of heatstroke - a serious condition for dogs, with a mortality rate between 39%-50%.
👉 It is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act to leave a dog in a hot vehicle if they are showing signs of heat stress. You can be fined, and prosecuted.
SPCA has created downloadable resources to help you spread the message even further. Posters, a flyer, and a social media tile can be downloaded from our website here: www.spca.nz...
We encourage you to use these - and ask your local businesses to display the posters if they can. Flyers can be kept in your car and handed out as needed.
This is a community problem, and one we cannot solve alone. Help us to prevent more tragedies this summer by sharing this post.
On behalf of the animals - thank you ❤️
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