Clinton Walker
Everything Clinton
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • NEWS
  • BOOKS
    • Wizard of Oz
    • History is Made at Night
    • Golden MIles
    • Buried Country
    • Football Life
    • Stranded
    • Highway to Hell
    • Next Thing
    • Inner City Sound
    • Deadly Woman Blues
  • MUSIC
    • Silver Roads
    • Inner City Soundtrack
    • Buried Country CD/LP
    • Buried Country Roadshow
    • Studio 22
    • Long Way to the Top
    • Killer Sheep
    • Painted Ladies
    • Lagoona Records
    • D.J.
  • FILM & TV
    • Buried Country
    • Rare Grooves
    • Studio 22
    • Love is in the Air
    • Long Way to the Top
    • Sing it in the Music
    • Notes from Home
    • Monaro Pictures
  • BUY
  • BACKPAGES
    • Fanzines (1970s)
    • Journalism (1980s>90s)
    • digitaloosends (2000s)
    • Talking Head
  • RE-MIXED
    • House Without Music
    • Leaving Home
    • Bodgie Boogie
    • Rock Ink
    • Vinyl Age
    • Lowest of the Low
    • Low Biblio
    • Inner City Video
    • Co-Dependent
  • ART
  • PHOTOS
  • MEDIA
  • CONTACT

how bizarre

22/8/2014

0 Comments

 
How Bizarre is a new documentary about the late Pauly Fuemana, leader of the Otara Millionaires Club, in which I appear as an interview subject. Named after the act’s huge 1995 single “How Bizarre,” the film premiered on Maori TV in New Zealand on August 25, and might be viewable on-demand here   
Picture
It wasn’t till the film’s director Stuart Page got in touch with me in 2013 that I fully appreciated the small role I played in the rise of the OMC and the propulsion of “How Bizarre” to become a worldwide smash, the biggest-ever record to come out of New Zealand with sales of over a million. Of course, I’d been shocked to hear about the death of Pauly Fuemana in 2010, when he was still only 41, but I had no idea what had happened in between that and “How Bizarre.” Which is what this fine film fills in for me. Back in the day in ’95, when I was still writing for Rolling Stone, I heard “How Bizarre” on pre-release and instantly loved it, and was convinced it would be a hit. It’s not often in the music game that you can pick ’em, but I picked this one! I met and interviewed Pauly Fuemana in Sydney, and in short, he was a star, I thought, a total natural. I wrote a feature on these new sounds coming out of New Zealand which you can read here, the pdf Stuart Page sent me. As the single first hit Number One in New Zealand and then Australia, and then the act set its sights overseas, it turned out, as Page told me, that that Rolling Stone tearsheet served as something of a calling card for what became a juggernaut. I was delighted to discover that I’d actually done my little bit for the cause; and that it was then one of my heroes, British writer/broadcaster Charlie Gillett, who picked up on the whole thing and spruiked it to the rest of the world. Less delighted, perhaps, to find out – as the film illustrates – that “How Bizarre” could virtually stand as an object illustration of how hard it can sometimes be to survive in the shadow such an overarching hit… And yet, maybe the thing is, every time I put that track on, to this day, it never fails to bring a smile to my face… 
0 Comments
    Picture

    CLINTON WALKER

    clintonwalker.com.au

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    July 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    September 2013

    Categories

    All
    Festivals
    Publications
    Speaking Engagements