Old fella listens in on what yoof are up to

By GREG DIXON

There's an inherent problem in getting old fellas to review yoof television.

It's not so much that we don't understand what it is to be young - I can still vaguely remember my 21st birthday - it's that we just don't understand what it means to be young right now.

So sitting down to watch the now-maturing yoof music programme Space (10.30pm, TV2) on a Friday night only underlines a few well-acknowledged home truths. For starters, it's on a little late (and runs until midnight) for old fellas what have to get up in the morning. Its retro graphics (sort of Joe 90 produced by computers) aren't so much retro for me as, sniff, fond memories. And lastly, and most predictably, of the seven acts featured last week I'd heard of only three.

Such is fast-diminishing life for those of us who are 20 or more years closer to our deaths than Space's target audience. But as a primer on what exactly those increasingly unfathomable young people are up to, it rates rather well.

Presenters Jo Tuapawa and Phil Bostwick - who have stepped into the trainers of retirees Jaquie Brown and Hugh Sundae - are a likeable enough pairing, she from a kids TV background, he from that random talent generator, BFM. Together, they look more or less relaxed on screen, if not quite sure of what the other's going to say next.

Last week's line-up was heavy with local talent, including the (and even I know this) near-ubiquitous The D4, a bunch of lads who just, well, rock.

However, a report on the band from London, where the lads were about to play the legendary Electric Ballroom, confirmed that some things never change in rock'n' roll.

The D4 made for uninteresting interview subjects in much the same way bands always have.

There were the predictable live-fast, play-hard comments. There was the "hopefully we'll have another album out by the end of the year" remark and, most predictably, the drummer didn't have much to say.

On television, musicians should, on the whole, only be allowed to do what they do best: play music.

Which is exactly what Space let Coldplay and Cassette do in a video and Relaxomatic Project and Grand Prix do in the studio. Well done.

Live guest Moby was also, and to much better effect, interviewed.

I had fears that it would be a total suck-up. At the start of the show, Bostwick had made (perhaps ironically, it's very hard to tell with yoof) comments to the effect that Moby was some minor deity: "I feel very special having spoken to Moby," he fussed. However, my apprehension was quickly allayed when the little bald guy himself stepped onto Space's fun but not terribly functional set.

Tuapawa's interview, while hardly in-depth, was pleasingly punctuated with intelligent questions which received intelligent answers from Moby, a bloke who is clearly too smart to play for The D4.

The show's regular features, "The Pitch" - a weekly series of sketches involving mock reality shows - and "New Zealand Pride", were, last week anyway, fun and sometimes funny.

The evening's highlight, however - well, they kept promo-ing it and Bostwick promised it was "quite evil" - was an allegedly controversial video from English band Cradle of Filth.

The song was apparently based on a work by the Marquis de Sade, a writer of filth, or as Taupawa put it "this dude who wrote it was quite yuck as well".

The video turned out to be mildly vile, but the real warning should have been for the music the clip had been made to advertise.

Cradle of Filth (clearly Marilyn Manson wannabes) are a load of unlistenable trash.

Now, in my day ...