Hikoi of serious mana, Billy TK and the Smiths

Yesterday morning by complete coincedence [or perhaps providence] I found myself in lower Willis St. as the Foreshore and Seabed Legislation Protest Hikoi marchers moved down towards Parliament. It was an overwhelming and utterly moving experience to witness this. Hundreds and hundreds of young Maori men in full warrior get-up with long hair flying and tattoos everywhere and, in a lot of cases, no underpants, expertly wielding their patu and taiha in synchronised haka challenges, chanting and spitting and scaring the shit out of me. Tall men tooted on those big shells adding to the atmosphere with their high soft keening wails. Then followed countless thousands of New Zealanders - well, someone did count them, there were more than 15,000 apparently - and there were all-sorts a-walking, not just Maori - whose voices rattled around the streets and soared up amongst the tower-blocks as they sang in unison, shuffling past the Star Mart. Young women lined up along the streets wept as they joined them in song and I felt a crushing mix of ignorance, pride, cultural insignificance, and complete solidarity with their cause [the latter despite my self-admitted limited awareness of the issue at hand].

I am compelled to respond to Steve InlandScenic's comments about Billy TK. I can't answer for the earnest young sensitive liberal white guys givin' the brown guy props for playing 'the blues', but I always go see him when I can because [a] he blew my mind with his guitar contributions to the Human Instinct and Powerhouse bands before I was even born; [b] he can often play it quite safe, but if you go and yarn to him during the break and get your copy of Stoned Guitar signed... and blow his mind that "the young people are still listening to these old albums" [paraphrased] [I didn't have the heart to ask him if he was aware of how many thousand dollars original copies of those albums sell for these days] and request of him very nicely, he gets back up for the second set and launches into an excoriating rendition of Midnight Sun which takes the top of your head off and messes wit'your brain a bit [and yes, the band can keep up] and then dedicates it to you when he's done; and [c] on occasion he lets a drunken Emma Paki get up and do her best [and famous] broke'up Etta James routine on the mic'. Hey, he's the Maori Jimi Hendrix, right? ['Swhat they used to call him circa 1968] So when's the gig, Steve?

And when when I was 13 or 14 and doing the paper-round after school back in Tawa, my co-employees [slaves: we got about $2.50 a day] would lend me tapes for my walkman. Matt, the older brother of a friend of my brother, and what we would think of today as an "indie-kid", lent me the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Smiths [specifically Darklands and Meat is Murder]. Pete, our older-still stoner drop-out hair-to-his-waist mentor, would bring Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and Led Zep along. Les, the hooligan son of the owners of the dairy at the bottom of the hill where we waited for the paper-lady, stalked around in crimson 14-hole Docs, turned-up jeans and a "ghetto"-blaster playing the Clash and the UK Subs. A motley crew, sure, but it goes to show that the musical subculture of my adolescence was just a shade different to that of Steve's and there was probably more Smiths going around than he thinks.

Anyway isn't nostalgia, authentic or not, just the privileged conceit of the bourgeoisie?