MC Hammer faces the music

I'll probably never experience what it's like to face up to the media at a press conference. I certainly hope I never find myself sitting in front of 30 microphones, John Campbell and Mark Sainsbury and the rest of a media scrum scrutinising my every move as I stutter through a pre-written statement denying all involvement in an incident involving a power drill, several pallets of Coca Cola and 100 missing gophers.

And I doubt I'll ever be famous enough to use my name to promote a high-profile brand like Nike or Playstation and tour the world on their behalf. But rest assured, if Muffin Break comes calling, I'll answer that call. As long as there are free muffins on offer, I'm there.

But I feel sorry for visiting musicians when they come to New Zealand. If they dare to hold a press conference - like Kanye West and Kings of Leon did recently - they have to face our media, and unfortunately, some of them are a bit embarrassing.

Why am I blogging about this? Because last night I went to see MC Hammer promote a new XBox game in front of a small gathering of New Zealand's entertainment media in Auckland. And I felt sorry for him.

Apart from fulfilling a morbid pop culture fetish - Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em was my second ever album purchase - I was there with a photographer to cover the event. You can read my story here.

Sure, Stanley Kirk Burrell is a one-hit wonder milking everything he can get out of his 1990 hit U Can't Touch This. Wouldn't you? But did he really deserve the treatment he received at this press conference?

Hammer was supposed to perform the song karaoke style on the new Lips game - a press person confirmed this to me - but he refused the offer when radio dude Dominic Harvey bounded on to the stage, complete with gold pants and bling, and challenged him to a duet. 

I don't blame Hammer for not performing. He had just had to endure some of the most ridiculous questions I've ever heard asked at a press conference.

It started badly, then got worse. First up was C4's Phil Bostwick, who asked, "Can I touch you?" After shaking hands with him, his follow-up was, "What's the best thing about being a part of the music industry?" There's a man showing off his journalism training.

Next up was Mike Puru. He asked him this: "How many TV screens do you have in your house?" It was the question on the tip of my tongue.

Then a small blonde I believed to be Kimberly Crossman, bless her cottons socks, asked him: "Do you reply to all of your fans on Twitter?" That's when I stopped taking notes, and hung my head in shame.

Over to the geeky dudes from tech magazines: "Do you prefer Macs or PCs?" and "What kind of phone do you use?"

I put my hand up briefly, but all of the questions were going to well-known names. No one asked Hammer why U Can't Touch This was so huge, whether he regretted spending several million on the video for 2 Legit 2 Quit, and whether he had bounced back from his 1996 bankruptcy. I would have thought these were basics.

Finally, the show came to an end when a ballsy chick who had brought along a plank of wood, a hammer and some nails challenged Hammer to "a hammer off". No surprises that he declined and left the stage.

And that was the end of that. Sure, none of them can quite match Jane Yee's infamous, and completely sincere, question to Moby: "Where did you get all of the extras for the Praise You video from?" at a well-publicised '90s press conference. (Sorry for making you relive the horror, Jane.)

But I sure am glad I'm not the one sitting behind all those microphones. If I was, I might have to get out my hammer and start hurting some of them.

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glossylicious   #1   02:07 pm Nov 13 2009

sounds cringeworthy! I wish you had got to ask him your questions!

guy   #2   04:55 pm Nov 13 2009

nz media is a joke. everyone knows that. they act like little children. and jane yee... i don't know what to say. i thought i knew you.

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