w h o a r . c o . n z

mr ralston..a short time back you did a column bemoaning the..in your mind..sad state of affairs at national radio..

..demonising it as boring/irrelevant in the extreme..if i recall correctly..

..at the time i said you were talking a load of tosh..

..and an interview kim hill did this morning would bury your case once and for all..

..the interview/’playing favourites’ was with steve katz..(no..i hadn’t heard of him either..)

..and he used to be in blood sweat and tears..(ho hum..!..i hear you say..!..)..amongst other things..

..the whole shebang kicked off with something katz produced..

..sweet jane’..lou reed and velvet underground….live..(with the best intro..ever..)

..katz has known/worked with a raft of luminaries over the years..and he has cool stories to tell..

..and one revelation…

..y’see..a lot of the reason blood sweat and tears can be disdained by the cogniscenti..

..is because they are seen by many..as sell-outs..

..this for a nixon-era state department tour behind the iron curtain they did..

..and this at the height of the vietnam whatevers..

..katz says that when they returned from this (much reviled) tour..

..there was a press conference..

..and that rolling stone mag..+ others..’lined up to throw tar at us’..

..the revelation about all this is that the band were blackmailed by the nixon state dept to do the tour..

..their lead singer..david cloverdale is canadian..and had a criminal record there..

..the state dept told them that if they didn’t do the tour..they would rip up cloverdales’ work permit..

..(and here’s the ‘rub’..!)..

..they weren’t allowed to say a word about being blackmailed..

..if they did..cloverdale etc etc…

..whoar..!..eh..?

..anyway..mr ralston..this is just one of the fascinating yarns mr katz had to spin..

..so..can i suggest you go to nat-rad website..(click on the link below..!)..

..and have a listen to mr katz..

..and as for your mea culpa..?

..anytime you are ready..eh..?

(and of course..if you disdain nat-rad..and the only other station of any note/worth..95 bfm..

..what are you left with..?..

..i really like marcus lush..but his show is sodden with all the ads/breakfast radio crap..

..that befoul commercial radio..

..and i can’t stay the distance..

..so..what/which radio..that is not sodden with ads/crap..do you recommend/listen to..?..)

(recommended-listen..)

go to source/story>>Radio New Zealand National : Programmes A-Z : Saturday Morning with Kim Hill

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 29th, 2008 at 1:02 pm and is filed under nz politics/culture/stuff, op-ed, music/ent/lit, we recommend. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.