I used to get a lot of hate mail – and then that turned into ‘comments’ and now it’s being tagged in an angry Facebook rant, or whatever. Sub-tweeted, but sub-humans…It’s all fair in love and blogging. But I got pretty good at receiving and reading hate-mail and figured I’d be able to pass off an attempt myself. You have to have fun when you’re writing every day. And it’s not going to happen every day, so you grab your fun where you can. I wrote a pretty popular blog post about the band Six60. And decided to follow it up with a pisstake letter in the style of some of the comments and hate-mail I had been receiving. I wrote it and published it. And plenty of people probably guessed that I had written it. But I never admitted it. What was pleasing on some level is that plenty of people were convinced I had not written. This meant all sorts of weird compliments and back-handers, “even you couldn’t write that badly”, “that’s more shit than you would be able to do” and so on. As I say, you get your fun where you can. Now, here’s that post again, with the awkward veil lifted, and one of the world’s worst-kept secrets. I wrote this letter to myself about myself. Because that’s the sort of self-flagellating thing you end up doing half a decade into the chase of a daily deadline…

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Listen, Simon Sweetman, I read this blog about Six60 you did and thought that it was really unfair.

New Zealand music needs to be taken seriously and the only way thats going to happen is if people give it a chance no matter what. Give it a chance and support it and love your music from you’re country. That is what needs to happen.

For you to call it “BBQ reggae” is actually a compliment. It means it is the music of choice for many people from all walks of life. And they play this music when they are together enjoying good times. The music makes them feel happy and good. Don’t you remember good times? And even if sometimes some of the band’s music does not hit the mark, does that matter? Who are you to judge? Who are you to get to decide and force your opinions on people?

I have seen your clips online. You playing pots and pans like a little child. That’s terrible. That’s not a hit song. That’s only going to make people Rise Up to leave! You have no talent. No skill at all. This completely invalidates your arguments about music because you see when I talk to people about music, the people I respect know stuff about music. They know how it works. And you, my friend, do not know how it works. You don’t. You can’t even make it work yourself. So your a joke.

Six60 really will Rise Up as a result of your blog – and that’s a good thing because they are leading the charge. They are showing the way with this new wave of BBQ reggae. And so what if they sound a bit like the cuz, Tiki Taane and the bros Shapeshifter. Man, that is the mean-buzz because they are incredible. That is incredible music that they are making, not a guy who cannot play in tune like yourself. You should be keeping your opinions to yourself.

Also I think there was some racism in your article and that’s not cool bro. But whatever. Peace. I think you are thinking too hard about Six60 – the bros are just making background tunes for you to cruise to. Don’t try to be so deep dude. It’s just good chill-out music for when you are hanging out with you’re friends and family. These are the roots you are not supposed to forget about bro. But you forgot about them straight away because you were trying too hard. Don’t try too hard. Be like Six60 and just go with the flow man.

Man, they got it sussed this band. And you don’t. I hope you publish this because I think people need to hear both sides and not just you’re side. You are old and you can’t play music so you do not know anything. Six60 will be New Zealand’s biggest selling and best band of 2012 and beyond. They will win all the music awards in 2012 and for many years. As they will only get better. And what will you be doing? Still writing this blog? What a waste. I bet you don’t got the balls to publish this? Do you?

Here’s the original post with comments from the time