The Men Of Audioculture

Simon Grigg and Murray Cammick, outside the site of Zwines. Photo: Peter Meecham/Fairfax

I've been writing a lot of words in the past few months for these fine gents, for the Audioculture website project. It's a hugely exciting venture, aiming at collecting a vast wealth of stories about NZ music, and launches at the end of this month... From Sunday Star Times....

"Simon Grigg says there are a million stories about Split Enz out there - and he'd like to tell them all. As creative director of the AudioCulture website, Grigg is in the right place to do just that.

He began working on the idea of the "noisy library" of New Zealand music three years ago. The publicly funded site will launch at the end of May, laden with the stories of those involved in pop and rock music in this country.

"I want to hear from everyone involved," Grigg says. "I don't think the definitive story is ever told of anything. The way we've structured the site means we can just keep adding. I think the scope is scary - I don't know if it ever ends."

...When Grigg first imagined an online archive of New Zealand music, it was partly due to the story of his friend, Phil Warren, never being properly told.

Warren was an early promoter of New Zealand rock'n'roll acts like Ray Columbus and Johnny Devlin, as well as bringing many international acts to the country.

Grigg and writer Russell Brown have been delving into Warren's own huge archive so that his story can be documented on AudioCulture.

"I was very aware that people are dying, and trying to capture their stories," Grigg says. "I was a kid in the 1970s, and I used to look up to these people - they were the reason I got into music. Warren was so important, and there are thousands of stories like that."