Jim'll Fix It

Rip It Up, Issue 68, 1 March 1983, Page 14

Jim'll Fix It

Jim Wilson's name isn't a popular one among many music people. You'll hear a lot of bitching about him some of it justified. The city has four major pub venues and a nightclub Wilson is involved in all of them. All the venues have been handled by different people at times, but they've all come back to Wilson. He makes them work. Wilson got his start in music management in the mid-seventies with Ezzy Promotions, handling old-wave bands like Fat Bella. Seeing the Vauxhalls at one of the Strand dances in Mt Pleasant in 1979 turned him and he joined Phil Brennan’s Strand Promotions. Strand put bands like the Swingers, the Features and the Androidss into the Hillsborough and later Wilson was responsible for beginning the early week specials at the Gladstone. After a brief stint as a CBS sales rep, Wilson returned, snatching the Hillsborough from under the noses of Laura Mitchell and Rose Stapleton, who were putting all their energies into the Gladstone. Eventually he regained the Gladstone, which has never been the same since. There's a lot more to it than that, but the politicking is tedious and the facts contentious.

Wilson can always be counted upon to have an opinion, even if it does change every six months or so. At present he's right behind Flying Nun bands and those with the same spirit. 'There's been no suitable venue for Flying Nun type bands. The Star and Garter is the pits as a venue, but it's all they've got. But they wrecked the Gladstone. It's just hard explaining to a pub manager that his toilets were wrecked but he should book another fringe band next week." Wilson feels one of the main evils in Christchurch at the moment is the rise of cheap coverplaying residency bands parading as new music. A band can play last year's Spandau Ballet songs, undercut the door charges of gigging bands and make a lot of money. "It's hard explaining to a hotel manager that if he sticks to original music it'll be better in the long run." Wilson maintains he has been good to bands, pointing out that the Hillsborough is one of the few pubs to pay guarantees. 'l've always stood for the bands' best interests Wilson's name went on the bottom of a letter written by his former partner Peter Waller and published in this paper. The letter was a bitchy sour-grapes tirade against the country's bands. It didn't exactly enhance the two promoters' popularity. As he promised in the letter, Waller went to Australia. - 'That letter was written at a bad time. Peter and I were doing a really good job just keeping touring bands coming. We did South Island tours better than anyone else. "Peter was getting up at 6am to do poster runs two or three times a week. He just grew frustrated with it all." "But every so often you do something that keeps you going. The Dwarfs and the Clean at the Star and Garter was one of the things that kept me going last year. And Netherworld Dancing Toys at the Gladstone. It's the same sort of feeling I got out of working Toy Love and the

Swingers." This year he may set up a "proper agency". He has alsc thought about running a seminar on the rock 'n' roll business. He sees the Mockers, Netherworld Dancing Toys and the Wastrels as hopes for the year. That's Wilson's side of things. No doubt some people would have more to add on the subject. RB