Oh, I see your point now. I only have worked in California pretty much, and for sure Crowed House and Split Enz were cooler than the Doors, far more varied than Sprint or The Blasters, sold more tickets to shows than the Grateful Dead, were more punk than the Dead Kennedys or Operation Ivy (and Operation Ivy was more punk on a bad night than Rancid and Green Day combined on all their best nights), sold far more records than Journey and the Jefferson Airplane (I mean Mean to Me is on everyone lips, who knows the words to White Rabbit or Don't Stop Believing?), and for totally were not near as heavy as Metallica, and damn even the drummers played better guitar better than Joe Satriani. I'm also sure that there is some babe in NZ who is a much better blues player than Bonnie Raitt. Hey, we're Americans, what would we know about blues, rhythem and blues, Rock and Roll, or even Jazz? But we have great hope for Van Halen and Sammy Hagar and Faith No More, they might make it big one of these days. Well, Van Halen and Faith No More will never be Split Enz, but who will?
But pity us, we are trying. We really try hard to someday have the LA Sound and the San Francisco Sound equal the New Zealand Sound in terms of those silly things like, oh, selling tickets and selling CDs, and making money.
Now I had nothing to do with any of the success of those bands, but I have worked with with and for every single one of them. Its not just something I read about or just ran out and bought. It's something I got to be a part of first hand, but hey, what would I know?
And perhaps you might even help us out, god knows we have these little companies in Sunnyvale, San Jose, Santa Clara, and Cupertino who are trying to mirror the success that NZ has in computers, chips, and programming. I mean this entire conversation is only made possible by Ton Systems, right? Named after Wellington? Or is it Cisco Systems, after San FranCISCO?
