You're soaking in it

09:05am 30 May 2011 0 comments

Inspired by his time here, a former Ham-Easter is returning to the city for a night in June.
Luke Thompson wrote a hit song about Waikato roads in 2008, this time round it's our
mighty river that's driving him back.

Luke, you used to live across the water from the rowing club.

Yeah, I lived on Wellington St, down by the river; we could smell the KFC from our
house.

Well Lookie what we have here

03:46pm 28 Apr 2011 1 comment

A couple of years ago Hamilton band the Lookie Loos had a quite a buzz around town. They were good, really good, and then the next thing you know they were advertising a farewell gig. Lead singer Tim Steers was going overseas. It's too tricky to replace a lead singer (eh Queen) so the band then forth ceased to exist. Though not without hope of one day reforming, they scattered back to their normal Waikato-ian lives.

Imagine my surprise a couple of weeks ago when I got an invite on facebook to attend a gig of theirs at Flow Bar on Sunday May 1. I thought I'd gone back in time, to the year 2008. I mean Great Scott - the Lookie Loos playing at Flow? Had I accidentally sat on a flux capacitor? Had I hooned into Te Aroha at 88k's per hour and sizzled in a flash of electricity into the past when we got within an inch of the town clock?

I checked facebook. Status updates didn't have the word 'is' after my name, (like they used to) so it's safe to assume I'm back in 2011. Wherever I'd been, (to the shops) I was now back to the future, but only because the clock in the car was set five minutes fast so my girlfriend was never late for things. I was in fact staring at a computer screen in the present day. So where was Tim Steers? Back in his English homeland? Nay.

"Hey Greg"

Te Awamutu's Kicking Keepsake

11:30am 14 Apr 2011 1 comment

In the week after Easter, a strange combination is going to descend on Te Awamutu. Not strange because it'll be bizarre, but because two relative strangers will be playing at the same time. By then they'll have got to know each other, thanks to an introduction from a mutual friend: Anika Moa.

Both Anna Coddington and Julia Deans are no strangers to playing in this part of the country, a decade ago Julia's old band Fur Patrol performed several times for us, including a memorable night at the now non-existent Sol Bar on Victoria Street. Three years ago there was that come back gig at Flow, just a few doors down. Then she went solo, for a while opening for and then playing guitar with Anika Moa (did you see that in the Cambridge Town Hall?). And Anna Coddington, well she's from Raglan, and used to flat with Anika up in Auckland. This meeting of the two minds seemed inevitable when you think about it. I wonder if this is the first time Mrs. Moa's played matchmaker?

Keen on getting more information about this event, I nervously contacted Anna. She's lovely, approachable, friendly and articulate; all reasons not to be frightened. So why was I? I'd been having a yarn with her old manager, and he told me she was fluent in other languages and has a black belt! Crikey, one wrong question, one sarcastic comment at the wrong time (believe it or not I'm quite prone to that) and I'd be left hunched over in a heap.

Best to do this interview electronically.

Westie's delicious demands

10:10am 29 Mar 2011 0 comments

A couple of months ago I saw that Auckland based Aussie singer songwriter Tim Guy was doing a gig at Vinnies in Raglan. I thought Vinnies was a restaurant - not a place for music? As I was browsing through eventfinder.co.nz to what was coming up over the next few weeks, I spotted another gig there.

I haven't dined there for years, my last memory of it was hearing about it being on a TV show, one of those restaurant make overs, possibly hosted by that American guy that looked like Glenn Fry from The Eagles? People at work talked about it because others we knew had been on it as punters, including one with a loud laugh. So maybe this music thing was part of his plan?

The second gig I spotted was for next Thursday by a singer called Michelle Nadia. I'd never heard of her, so I read the blurb. A Westie by birth, someone who likes to stick to her side of the island I suspected. Yet curiously Ms Nadia has never been to Raglan before, spending much of her time overseas for the last few years, including five or so in Sydney studying singing. Her reason for playing round this way is to support the release of a new album called Firefly, produced by Nic Manders.

I recognised that last name. I met Nic a few months ago, also on the West Coast (though further north past Waiuku), at a friend's wedding. He knew the bride, I knew the groom from when he lived here in the 90s. We were asked to play some background music after the ceremony while the wedding photos were being taken. We had a quick rehearsal the week before then pretty much winged it on the day. We played jazz standards with a double bass player called Bill; most of the tunes were already familiar to us all. Nic was on piano and I was on drums. We were expected to play for about fifteen minutes but were having such a good time we ended up playing for over an hour. Guests were mingling and drinking, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.

It was great fun, with great musicians. I just kept the beat while they worked their magic. Nic's reputation preceded him as a producer for the likes of Luke Thompson, Golden Horse and Brooke Fraser. And now Michelle Nadia.

Lumpkin dreams of Raglan's beans

02:04pm 24 Mar 2011 0 comments

When you think of country music do you think of Billy Ray Cyrus line dancing to Achy Breaky Heart, Kenny Rogers The Gambler or the theme tune to The Dukes Of Hazzard? Just me eh...

All that American stuff. How about kiwi country? Who do we have here that bellows out a mean hoe down or stomps along a good ol' knee slapper? Brooke Fraser's Something In The Water has elements of that but she's off being number one in Italy and putting her songs on the BBC, so I'll look a little closer to home.

Former Whatawhata lass Lauren Thomson fits the bill, although she's a little more on the yearnful than the yee-ha, a little more of the 'life's pretty good' than 'life's gone done dealt me a bad hand' vibe. More like Lurlene Lumpkin than Cletus Spuckler (from The Simpsons).

About two years ago, Lauren met Tami, who'd grown up north of America in a motor home singing in her family band called The Neilsons. Man, that's country.

The Ontarian and the former Hamilton Girls High alum met up for a coffee soon after, only to be confronted with the mirror image of their wardrobe. They'd both worn the same outfit: a black dress with a red cardi. By the final slurp of the flat white they were finishing each other's sentences, such was the comradery. Even now as they tour together they feel inclined to check what the other is wearing so they don't show up on stage wearing the same thing!