29 NOVEMBER 2011 #013

BLACK JOE LEWIS

ADRIAN SHERWOOD

RUST AND KISSING”

MIC TECHNIQUE – “IT TASTED LIKE

TIM FINN AND MATT HEATH TALK

NUMBER ONEGARAGE-SOUL BROTHER

– DUBWISE DAMAGE

November29th – The Wine Cellar – Auckland30th – Hamilton Acoustic Music Club

Biddy Mulligans – HamiltonDecember1st – Happy – Wellington2nd – Interislander Ferry2nd – Fair eld House – Nelson3rd – Le Café – Picton

w/ Luckless & Bond St Bridge4th – Nor’Wester Café – Amberley6th – The Church Café – Dunedin7th – Arthur St Café – Timaru8th – The Brewery – Christchurch9th – Interislander Ferry9th – St Peter’s Hall – Paekakariki10th – Eggsentric Café – Whitianga11th – Tabac – Auckland

w/ Katie Scott & The Miss T’s

Tickets from undertheradar.co.nz & select outlets

All show times & details at jordielane.com

*Mel will play all dates except Dec 11th.

Volume and Horizon Music NZ presents…

(AUS)

with very special guests Matt Langley & Mel Parsons*“One of the most assured debut albums ever by a local artist” Rolling Stone“Australia’s brightest new roots music star” Rhythms Magazine“Channeling Parsons, Springsteen and Van Zandt, Lane is an exceptional talent” MAG

New album ‘BLOOD THINNER’ out Nov 29th. jordielane.com | mattlangley.co.nz | melparsons.com

My Election ’11 checklist was a little tamer than Renton’s and didn’t require any buckets, but prep work is important for a night of armchair sports and speculation. Take a fridge heaving with beverages, add enough snacks to take you through to the concession speeches and victory laps, an open laptop at the ready, and then turn your back on what’s happening outside your window.

Turns out I couldn’t control that bit. I live across from SkyCity, and early in the evening Wendy Petrie alerted me to the fact that the broadcast vans lined up outside Auckland’s very own den of iniquity were there to cover John Key’s do.

A steady stream of bowtied Young Nats paraded past my apartment that evening, folks who have opted to choose life, jobs, careers and fucking big televisions. They made National’s looming victory hard to ignore, the trails of blue balloons serving as a gauge for the tone of the night as much as what was on the television and streaming through on Twitter.

My supplies got me through to when John and Bronagh rolled past my building in a parliamentary BMW. Then my lock-in was over and I turned off the telly.

I woke to pink dinosaurs, giant gingerbread men and Xmas-themed floats, as the Young Nats circus made way for the Santa Parade, and with three words ringing in my ears: “Three more years...”

EDITOR: Sam Wicks sam.wicks@volumemagazine.co.nz

WEB EDITOR: Hugh Sundae hugh.sundae@nzherald.co.nz

DEPARTMENT OF VOLUME SALES: John Baker john.baker@volumemagazine.co.nz

DESIGN: Stephen Czerwonka

WRITERS: Day Barnes, Marty Duda, Duncan Greive, Jessica Hansell, Joe Nunweek, Dion Palmer, Deidre Robert, Stinky Jim, Hugh Sundae, Aaron Yap

ILLUSTRATION: Hej Ganias

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Roger Grauwmeijer, Nick Kingstone, Keith Murdoch, Milana Radojcic

AN APN PUBLICATION

Whenever I’m staging a lock-in, Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting comes to mind. Remember that scene where Ewan McGregor’s character, Mark Renton, barricades himself in a room with essential cold turkey supplies of tins of mushroom soup, vanilla ice-cream, paracetamol, mouthwash, vitamins, mineral water, Lucozade and pornography, plus one television and a bottle of Valium? Oh, and one bucket for urine, one for faeces and one for vomitus.

Local heavyweight selectors Manuel Bundy, Submariner and Cian are bringing Jazzy Sport’s Grooveman Spot to The Turnaround on Friday at Auckland’s Bacco Room, and we’ve got two double passes to give away. To be in to win, check out Grooveman’s top five New Zealand tunes on page 15, then email loot@volumemagazine.co.nz and let us know some Jazzy Sport gems you’d like to see the Japanese DJ/producer drop.

FLIP GRATERHow does it feel to have wordsmith Don McGlashan quoted as saying your writing is “sensuous, funny and wise”?Pretty spesh. Don is an incredible writer – one of New Zealand’s best songwriters even – so his comment filled me with massive shucks.

Your new cookbook tracks your adventures in food through Europe. Tell us about the tastiest meal you ate and where you ate it.White truffles on fresh pasta. Northern Italy. I went hunting with a fifth-generation truffle hunter called Natale and his dog Diana. We found a stash of white gold and returned to his casa to share a three-hour feast of truffles and local wine followed by poetry readings in Italian and English. It was actually too good. I think it’s ruined my life by causing all other experiences to pale in comparison.

What gives you more pleasure – a well-cooked feed or a well-written song?Ideally I’d be eating the well-cooked feed whilst listening to the well-written song. Ideally in good company in a beautiful setting with the sun shining and an excellent wine in hand.

Adventures in food and music is a winning recipe – when are we going to see you on telly?Good question! Producers – call me.

THE COOKBOOK TOUR BY FLIP GRATER Thurs 1 Dec – Penguin Club, OamaruFri 2 Dec – Chicks Hotel, Port ChalmersSat 3 Dec – Christchurch Food and Wine FestivalWed 7 Dec – Tabac, AucklandThurs 8 Dec – Yot Club, RaglanSat 10 Dec – Sawmill Café, Leigh

MORE FOLDBACKCAITLIN SMITH – VOCAL COACHI’m a performer and a songwriter, so I see vocal coaching as my “Clark Kent job”. It’s been hard to focus on the performance side of things because the pull towards coaching is so strong. You’ve got to know what goes into voice craft – how to control your voice and use your voice, how to story-tell, spell-cast, and do all the things that a voice is capable of. Every voice is idiosyncratic and people learn differently, so I approach it from lots of different angles. I’m working with such a cross-section of people and across many different disciplines as well. The coaching of someone’s creativity is like midwifery – I’m helping people birth their songs and their true voices, and that’s a really satisfying job.

Caitlin Smith’s new album You Have Reached Your Destination will be released in the New Year.

Former D4 bass player Dion Palmer is currently a member of New York purveyors of noise, A Place to Bury Strangers.

SEND ME A POSTCARD

OBLITERATING CHCH-DUN-WELL-HAM-AUCK in DEC!!!

sIx RULEs Of LOCK & LOLL ONE - LOOK GOOD!

TWO - fIGHTING spIRIT!THREE - ACTION!

THERE Is NO fOUR AND fIvEsIx - TECHNIqUE?

OH, ELECTION NIGHT coverage. It’s like prodding a keyboard and waiting for the screensaver to disappear. For three hours. No wonder TV3 tried to liven things up by enlisting Gin Wigmore as a political reporter. Although strangely people kept calling her Rebecca.

“Rebecca, I hate to objectify you as it’s inappropriate, but you… look… great,” John Campbell said, objectifying her.

Considering how many people broke the law all day by harping on about the election, it was strangely silent online at 7pm. When it was actually legal to start talking about it again. It was 7.30pm before I saw anyone talking about it, and when I did it was just Deborah Hill Cone gauging the pulse of the nation: “I’m reviewing election TV coverage. What do you think of it so far?”

“Bit of a pub quiz, really, isn’t it,” TV3’s Duncan Garner said, answering a different question altogether.

In my brief career as a talkback host (Radiolive 1-6am during holidays) I came to learn only too well about how to pad things out. Actually, I didn’t really learn how to do it, I just wished I was better as it, as I repeated myself an embarrassing amount of times to kill time between calls. I’m actually quite glad half of these reporters aren’t that good at it either.

“He’s not having pizza like John Key,” TV3’s Tova O’Brien said of Phil Goff, before listing John Key’s family members. Oh, election night coverage, how I love you.

TV3 did have the secret weapon though – Clark. Linda Clark was so good as host of Radio New Zealand’s Nine to Noon, you actually wanted her to be Prime Minister.

Back on the other channel, Simon Dallow took time out from pointing out the ticker to throw to Petra Bagust, who was on the roof gauging the mood of the nation. She interviewed someone who looked so much like muso-around-town, Hayden East, that it actually was Hayden East. He looked like he spoke with confidence. I wish I’d had the sound up.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of this column turns out. I think it’s probably somewhere between better or worse than I expected, but I’m still only 412 words in, and it’s early days yet. Let’s cross back to John Campbell, who’s just crossed back to Mihingarangi Forbes.

“I know it’s hard for you to talk, so feel free to do it quietly,” John Campbell said to Mihingarangi Forbes. Perhaps years after it first crossed his mind.

The light-relief that these election broadcasts sometimes employ was on short supply. TV3 had a John Key impersonator, but he looked more like Bill English.

It was much later when we finally got some real answers. “What are they drinking?” Campbell asked Hilary Barry who was stationed at the Act Party HQ. She was non-committal, but on the other channel Rawdon Christie came through. “Lindauer,” he said. “We’re only a couple of hundred metres from John Key’s house.”

On Wednesday tune in to nzherald.co.nz/music around midday for a live stream of Pajama Club performing live from Roundhead studio, including a live-chat session where the band will take your questions live… flash, huh? God, I hope it works. You can win a double-pass to Splore by heading to nzherald.co.nz/sundaesessions and entering the competition. There is a skill question but it’s so easy I may as well give you the answer now. I won’t, but you should check out the latest Drab Doo-Riffs sessions which are going up every couple of days.

MORE GRAvY

It will be interesting to see how this column turns out. I’ve started well, maybe even got your attention, but I’m only 23 words in and it’s early days yet.

CROSSING LIVE TO OUR REPORTER IN…

“Oh, ELECTION NIGhT COVERAGE, hOw I LOVE yOU. ”

MATT HEATHHauraki disc jockey Matt Heath and boy from Te Awamutu, Tim Finn, might seem unlikely collaborators, but over the years they’ve worked together on music videos, telly shows and an infamous ‘Ten Guitars’ routine that saw 10 six-strings busted over the head of Heath’s Back of

the Y comrade, Chris Stapp. Ahead of Finn’s The View is Worth the Climb tour, Matt Heath and Tim Finn got together to talk mic technique and oral hygiene.

Photography Milana Radojcic

“IT wAS DISGUSTING, AND IT TASTED LIkE RUST AND kISSING SOMEONE. LUCky I’D hAD A fEw DRINkS.” – MATT hEATh

TIM FINN: What sort of microphone do you use at Hauraki? MATT HEATH: I’m not sure

but it’s big, and the other day – who did I have in there? Someone

disgusting… oh, Jonny Toogood from Shihad came in to sing on my show and he goobered all over it when he was singing.

Saliva. Yeah, it was more than saliva, it was

like, um…

Oh, it was the next level down, which is the beginnings of the bile. Yeah, ’cause you’ll know talking into a microphone’s different from singing into a microphone. A lot more comes out of the mouth singing.

I did an interview once with John Laws in Australia, a legendary icon of the broadcasting game over there, and he had a serious gold-plated microphone. It was his personal one?

Oh yeah. Wow, ’cause I know some people who have personal headphones, but I’ve never seen anyone go so far as personal microphones. I always think of going so far as a personal microphone cap after Jonny’s been in there, and then I was thinking about it, ’cause there’s a whole lot of other shows before the Drive show. By the time I get there, there’s a day’s worth of goobers on there.

&TIM fINNSometimes you might be singing into the same mic as that guy. Like, when you guys toured with us, who knew what Chris [Stapp] was doing, slobbering all over my mic. I’ve had that with Chris. He does slobber on mics, and I’ve had that when I’ve gone onto his mic, you know, when you’re rocking on the other side of the stage and you swap mics. I’ve actually had a situation where I yelled in and then I breathed back out, and then a whole lot of liquid came back out of the microphone.

That’s disgusting! It was – it was disgusting, and it tasted like rust and kissing someone. Lucky I’d had a few drinks, but I just remember, like, walking backwards going…

You always hope the roadies will attend to that after soundcheck and before the gig, and you can smell straight away if it’s really clean, they’ve put on that antibacterial spray. The professionals do that and it smells minty and nice, but very rarely did my band puts its head high enough to…

It’s amazing when you’re watching a band perform live sometimes and you notice they’re really back from the mic. Bob Marley was quite often like that, at least a foot or a foot-and-a-half. His voice was so powerful that it would just… and maybe the band wasn’t that loud, but I get right up on it. Well, I get nervous when I watch people on TV doing that. I always wonder

if people can hear them, because I actually see some singers and you see them live and they’ve just got really into their singing. You know, when they go to a loud note and they pull it away from themselves – if you’re in a rock band that means you’re listening to the drums. There’s no room for subtlety, that kind of Mariah Carey [Heath starts trilling].

To listen to the full audio of Matt Heath and Tim Finn in conversation, head to nzherald.co.nz/volume – live from 2pm Tuesday.

Matt Heath hosts Matt Heath Drive with Tiny Tim on Hauraki, 4-7pm weekdays.

Tim Finn’s The View is Worth the Climb is out now on ABC Music/Universal.

TIM FINN’S THE VIEW IS WORTH THE CLIMB TOUR Wednesday 30 November – The Mercury Theatre, Auckland Thursday 1 December – Clarence Street Theatre, Hamilton Friday 2 December – Bodega, Wellington Sunday 4 December – Rangiroa Town Hall, Rangiroa

Disturbing the comfortable and comforting the disturbed, London label/collective On-U Sound has been dishing out the dubwise damage for three decades, with Adrian Sherwood always at its core. The master mixologist returns in December to play one New Zealand show. Text Stinky Jim

STRANGE TURNTHOUGH ADRIAN SHERWOOD’s production credits are impressively wide (Primal Scream, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Dave Dobbyn etc), it is the On-U Sound label built around artists like Dub Syndicate, African Head Charge, Singers & Players, Mark Stewart & The Mafia and Bim Sherman and Gary Clail that is the real legacy. From early experiments in noisy, post-punk afro-dustrial music in 1981, to 2011’s sophisticated dubbed-out blues with Skip McDonald’s Little Axe outfit, On-U Sound has remained a standard setter for adventurousness and sonic pugilism.

One of Sherwood’s most consistent collaborators has been Lee “Scratch” Perry, the Jamaican dub pioneer and unhinged genius, whose work with others has been notoriously patchy at best. However with Sherwood there’s a real chemistry, and actual quality control – what’s the secret?

“I care more probably. I get on well with him in the studio. He’s got streams of consciousness that pour out of him and good ideas, and if you stop him in his tracks and say, ‘Let’s enlarge on that’, he’ll take you off on

something amazing, even at the age he’s at now.”

On-U Sound may well have started off in debt and has had to endure various tough times and even ill-advised dalliances with major labels and shifty indies, but the sound and aesthetic has remained strong. Brand-building may not have been the intention, but three decades down the track, On-U remains an unimpeachable trademark for quality, innovation, sonic adventure and elephantine basslines. That’s a point that isn’t lost on the elders of the dubstep community like Digital Mystikz’s Mala, Horsepower Productions, Moody Boyz and Kode 9 who all contributed to the stunning 2011 Lee “Scratch” Perry remix set, Nu Sound and Version. The feeling is mutual.

“I’ve got respect from that community. I big up the ones I like, and they all kind of give me respect – it’s brilliant. I think it’s important; the evolution of what came from Jamaica – roots and dub – is now kept alive by a lot of people in London because the Jamaican scene is pretty

unhealthy. There’s incredible stuff coming out of London at the moment.”

Though he did his first DJ gigs in school lunch breaks as a 13-year-old, Sherwood remains primarily a backroom operator, only releasing a record under his own name in 2003. Previously the closest he came to the limelight was as part of Tackhead, the ferocious outfit who provided the backing for records like Grandmaster Flash’s ‘The Message’ and ‘White Lines’ in New York, before being led to the outer limits with Sherwood at the controls.

“ThE EVOLUTION Of whAT CAME fROM JAMAICA – ROOTS AND DUb – IS NOw kEPT ALIVE by A LOT Of PEOPLE IN LONDON bECAUSE ThE JAMAICAN SCENE IS PRETTy UNhEALThy.”

“I got very disillusioned with reggae because my friend, [Prince] Fari, had been killed, and I thought, ‘Fuck this, it’s rubbish. What are you doing?’ A lot of it was thankless, I wasn’t making any money and I was doing it because I loved it. But how much can you love something when your friends are being topped by arseholes? Then I thought, ‘Hang on a minute’. We were going in an area with the noise and funk and the dub together, and it was really exciting and nothing had been done like that before.”

So what went so wrong with the big Tackhead album, Strange Things, then?

“Cocaine... cocaine, I think that’s it. We suddenly got given lots of money and everybody wanted to make a record that was a bit of this, a bit of that, and Keith

[LeBlanc] wanted to play acoustic drums, having made all the records with these fierce fucking drum machines before. So it was an absolute pile of shit, that record. Don’t get me wrong – everything comes to an end eventually – but that turned into the epitome of Spinal Tap.”

Disarmingly honest and down to earth after over 30 years in the business, Sherwood is an unsullied true original and, as his New Zealand show will testify, there’s a good deal more woofer worrying and tweeter terrifying yet to come.

Adrian Sherwood plays The Powerstation in Auckland on Friday 16 December.

Mad bNet radio and DJ support alongside a series of scorching tours in the late ’80s and early ’90s solidified On-U’s place in the New Zealand firmament. However while Salmonella Dub remixes are to be expected, Adrian Sherwood producing Dave Dobbyn... what the… ?

“His manager’s an old friend of mine, and she suggested we meet. So we met and it was a really good experience, brilliant people. He’s a really good lad, Dave, and I really enjoyed doing that – bit of a departure. I’ve always tried to do things that are different, so working with a singer/songwriter like Dave was really good fun.”

And the rather splendidly titled track ‘Dobbyn Joins the Head Charge’ on their latest album Voodoo of the Godsent?

“That track was derived off one of Dave’s tunes, the horns. I thought it was like when Whitney joined the Justified Ancients of MuMu (on ‘Whitney Joins The JAMs’). I thought that was quite funny.”

THE NZ CONNECTION

ThE LOCALSI try to avoid talking about the album charts because they seem less connected to pop music than ever, but occasionally events force your hand. Following Dirk Nowitzski’s heroics in winning an NBA championship for the Dallas Mavericks, another Dallas, this one named David, has done something quite remarkable. The Rose Tint debuts at number three on the New Zealand album charts, two spots ahead of Bic Runga – who has torn her house down to rebuild it in pretty remarkable fashion herself.

But Dallas’ feat is the more impressive. Because despite the ‘free album’ having been a known approach since Radiohead’s In Rainbows, and a way to launch hip hop careers for everyone from Drake to Dallas collaborator Freddie Gibbs, the fusing of various approaches (from an artist pretty deep into his career too), and the staggering success they’ve wrought, is what’s really new here.

To recap: The Rose Tint was released as a free download six months ago, and generated significant amounts of buzz, helped by extremely savvy online promotion from Dallas. Six months later he releases it on CD, and throws ridiculous energy into its release (most impressively a pop up store – an idea borrowed from fashion, but executed better than anyone in that arena I’ve seen). And despite some major retailers refusing to stock it – including the nation’s biggest, The Warehouse – it gets within a SuBo and a Gin of

topping the chart. Which makes The Rose Tint, and

Dallas, the most impressive music marketing story of the year from here, maybe from anywhere. ThE wORLDAmerica’s more sane cousin to the north has nowhere near the troubles from its proximity to the USA that Mexico suffers through, but one bizarre element has just finished working its way through the court system. Those Latter Day Saints who keep the flame of Joseph Smith alive through their commitment to plural marriage – AKA polygamy – have drifted north of the Idaho border chasing freedom to love as grotesquely as they desire (read John Krakauer’s superb Under the Banner of Heaven for more on these maniacs). Unfortunately the BC Supreme Court just denied their request for religious freedom. Shame. I’m personally more consumed by another question – where’s Canuck native Drake in their singles chart? ThE ’NETI know, I know – does anyone really need to know that LMFAO and Adele are really running the game right now? More interesting to me is the appearance of Don Omar, my favourite artist from the reggaeton explosion a few years back. ‘Danza Kuduro’ is far from his best work, but still sounds great, and has had over 250,000,000 views, second only to ‘Party Rock Anthem’. Incredible numbers for a song with no lyrics in English.

A column in which Duncan Greive scours the world’s charts in the hope of finding, if not the perfect beat, then something worth whistling at least.

RIANZ TOP 10 ALBUM CHART1 Gin – Gravel and Wine

2 Susan Boyle – Someone to Watch Over Me

3 David Dallas – The Rose Tint: Deluxe Edition

4 Six60 – Six60

5 Bic Runga – Belle

6 Adele – 21

7 Florence + The Machine – Ceremonials

8 Coldplay – Mylo Xyloto

9 Pink Floyd – A Foot in the Door: The Best of

10 Michael Buble – Christmas

CANADIAN HOT 101 Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris – ‘We Found Love’

2 LMFAO – ‘Sexy and I Know It’

3 David Guetta ft. Usher – ‘Without You’

4 Maroon 5 ft. Christina Aguilera – ‘Moves Like Jagger’

5 Adele – ‘Someone Like You’

6 Flo Rida – ‘Good Feeling’

7 Gym Class Heroes ft. Adam Levine – ‘Stereo Hearts’

8 Cobra Starship ft. Sabi – ‘You Make Me Feel…’

9 Hedley – ‘Invincible’

10 Katy Perry – ‘The One That Got Away’

1 LMFAO – ‘Sexy and I Know It’

2 Adele – ‘Someone Like You’

3 Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris – ‘We Found Love’

4 Katy Perry – ‘The One That Got Away’

5 LMFAO ft. Lauren Bennet & Goon Rock – ‘Party Rock Anthem’

6 Adele – ‘Rolling In the Deep’

7 Maroon 5 ft. Christina Aguilera – ‘Moves Like Jagger’

8 Pitbull ft. Marc Anthony – ‘Rain Over Me’

9 Nicki Minaj – ‘Super Bass’

10 Don Omar ft. Lucenzo – ‘Danza Kuduro’

YOUTUBE WORLDWIDE MUSIC CHART

IT’S BEEN 30 years since Rhode Island act Throwing Muses emerged, and it’s been a strange trip since. In 1981 founder Kristin Hersh was just 14, yet consumed by music to a frightening extent. Years later she was diagnosed as bipolar, which makes sense in the context of many of her songs. Some of those are represented on Anthology, the first compilation to cover Throwing Muses’ lengthy career. Its release on UK independent music icon 4AD marks the 25th anniversary of the band’s first album.

Unlike most career-spanning compilations, it isn’t a greatest hits package, instead comprising selections by the members of the band. As such it’s a more personal retelling of their history, something accentuated by not being presented chronologically . None of that matters, of course, as Anthology brings together a glorious set of songs which sound as anomalous now as they did when released.

While a cornerstone of the alternative music of the 1980s and ’90s, Hersh’s musical vision was always unique, with songs that seesawed from the wild to the meticulous, often within the same track. Among the most compelling of the 42 here are ‘Fish’, ‘Bright Yellow Gun’, ‘Cottonmouth’ and the early ‘Hate My Way’.

Review Gavin Bertram

ENBULL/JAZZY SPORT

1: Christoph El’ Truento – ‘Push’ 2: Julien Dyne – ‘GLIM’3: Hollie Smith – ‘Philosophy’4: Electric Wire Hustle – ‘Water’ 5: Teremoana Rapley, Submariner and Mark de Clive-Lowe – ‘Life’

Anthology(4AD)

GROOVEMAN SPOT’S TOP FIVE NEW ZEALAND TUNES

SBTRKTSBTRKT(Rough Trade)Months old but he’s kind of being treated as the

“token electronic” artist at Laneway – so it’s worth pointing out that his self-titled debut is one of the better electronic pop albums of the year. ‘Wildfire’ is a deceptive dubstep entrance to an album that balances 21st Century house (‘Pharaohs’) and glitchy r’n’b (‘Heatwave’). Check out his new Frank Ocean remix when you’re done.

VARIOUS ARTISTSTally Ho!: Flying Nun’s Greatest Bits(Flying Nun)Not too much new

to label acolytes, but a great two-CD entry point if the immense, artefact-y Flying Nun box set from five years ago scares you off. The best part is the hidden gold, as opposed to hearing ‘North by North’ and ‘Death and the Maiden’ again. Garageland’s ‘Pop Cigar’ and Loves Ugly Children’s ‘Space Suit’ are among the greatest lost Nun songs ever IMO.

MIDNIGHT YOUTHWorld Comes Calling(Warner)Midnight Youth’s debut copped

a pass for its hyper-kinetic exuberance. It was infectious and frothy. Here, on lumberers like ‘The Street’ and ‘Come On, Come All’, they feel lumbering and conventional – even the first single could pass for Wolfmother. Is it coincidence that I keep reading the title as World Cup Calling?

THE GETAWAY PLANRequiem(We Are Unified)Yes, I got to

use ‘strikethrough’! Australian jock-punk. Agonised and operatic and occasionally hitting that sweet spot where it becomes supremely entertaining for all its slickness. Dig the nimble falsetto on ‘The Reckoning’, have a vom at repulsive Home and Away-orchestral ballad ‘Coming Home’. Good fun.

VARIOUS ARTISTSTwilight: Breaking Dawn OST(Chop Shop/Atlantic)

C’mon, they’re not even trying anymore. Hate Twilight all you like but their soundtrack people got some big coups previously (Thom Yorke, Grizzly Bear). This has, like, one good Naked and Famous-y UK band at the start, then we have to endure Bruno Mars and The Noisettes. Luckily we only have to

get through one more of these.COBRA KHANAdversities(Elevenfiftyseven)Least surprising contender for the best heavy release

in New Zealand this year, right? 2008’s Helgorithims set a huge oceanic precedent for proggy but concise hardcore. Adversities is measure for measure as blistering, from the round-robin roars of ‘Blackened Royalty’ to the stately, sober denouement of ‘White Snow’.

STICKY FILTHFourth Domain(Elevenfiftyseven)Twenty-six years isn’t just an insanely long time for a New

Zealand hardcore punk band – it’s an insanely long time for a punk band, period. Old fans won’t be disappointed with Fourth Domain’s velocity and chops – young’uns should take away its ability to groove in a punishingly slow way one minute (‘The Witch That Got Away’) and pummel politically and sonically the next (‘Said the Labourer’).

SIN SINLayers(Frequency)Motocade guitarist Geordie McCullum’s new side-project is

a much more interesting project to me than the main gig – small-scale

ambient-noise that assembles child’s play rhythms, keyboard lines and acoustic plucks into rising washes of sound. The wonderful ‘Sorry But I’m Falling Down’ comes on like a more benign Shocking Pinks.

GOD BOWS TO MATHgod bows to math(Muzai)I was a bit mean about one of the

album’s lesser tracks on The Corner, but a couple of slow spots in a kickarse debut is still a kickarse debut. Not too much Minutemen on here despite the title, just serratingly dry, funny noise-rock in the best Touch & Go/McLusky spirit. Top pick: ‘Yr Kids Aren’t Special But I Am’.

EL REGO ET SES COMMANDOSEl Rego Et Ses Commandos(Daptone)

Lavish Daptone reissue of the music of a ’60s Benin rhythm’n’blues superstar. El Rego’s band would have been trailblazers in their time, weaving in Afro-Cuban and bossa nova influences to their spidery, dusty groove. Not quite as mind-blowing as hearing countrymen like Orchestre Polyrythmo for the first time, but unassumingly enjoyable.

Reviews Joe Nunweek

STINKY JIM’S TOP FIVE ON-U SOUND ESSENTIAL ALBUMS

1: Mark Stewart – As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade 2: African Head Charge – Off the Beaten Track 3: Dub Syndicate – Tunes From the Missing Channel 4: New Age Steppers – New Age Steppers 5: Various Artists – Pay It All Back Volume 2

TELL ’EM whatyour name is!

BLACK JOE LEWIS’ vocals have been compared to the likes of James Brown, Wilson Pickett and Howlin’ Wolf, while his guitar playing recalls blues greats ranging from Elmore James to R.L. Burnside. This is all the more impressive when you realise that the 30-year-old bandleader hadn’t played a note on the guitar 10 years ago.

“I actually didn’t start playing music until I was in my early 20s,” Lewis says. “I would go hang out with friends and pick up stuff on the guitar here and there. I just got the idea that I wanted to be in a band because all my friends had bands and nobody had to work. They all played music for a living. I then proceeded to try and get gigs, and I played on my own a lot. It was pretty rough in the beginning because I hadn’t been playing that long. Most people start playing when they’re really young so I

was learning on stage.”The former pawn shop worker

believes there are advantages to coming into the music later in life.

“If you’re really young and you get really big, you don’t know how to deal with being normal. For me, I’ve just been working day jobs, so if I get fucked over it’s just part of life. It’s going to take more for me to crack. I just turned 30 so I’m about to be too old to be a rock star.”

The sound of Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears is a mix of electric blues, ’60s soul and guitar-driven rock. Not exactly what you’d expect from a guy who grew up in the era of hip hop and grunge.

“I started out listening to a lot of hip hop when I was younger,” Lewis explains. “Then I started getting into rock. Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana were the first rock acts I started

getting into. As you get older, your tastes changes. Right around the time I started playing guitar I started listening to soul and blues. I really started to figure out what the good stuff was.”

When asked to list his favourite guitar players, Lewis comes up with a few surprises.

“Ah man, there’s tons. I have so many. You know, everybody likes Jimi Hendrix. I like Cheetah Chrome, he played in The Dead Boys. They’re one of my favourite all-time bands. Then there’s Ron Asheton, Elmore James, Lightnin’ Hopkins… there’s tons of blues guys who I don’t even know their names.”

The inclusion of The Stooges’ Ron Asheton and Cheetah Chrome is telling. The Dead Boys were a 1970s punk band from Ohio whose album title, Young, Loud and Snotty,

TELL ’EM whatyour name is!

BRAND NEW, YOU’RE RETRO

The type of retro-soul that Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears make seems to be in vogue these days. This past year has seen artists like Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings, Aloe Blacc and Eli “Paperboy” Reed travel to Auckland to perform their particular take on classic rhythm’n’blues.

The Brooklyn-based label Daptone has built its roster around veteran soul shouters like Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley and Lee Fields. When asked if he considers himself part of the same scene as the Daptone crew, Black Joe Lewis had this to say:

“Those guys are totally doing their own thing. They’re on another level. They’re great. I feel like we do more of a rock thing. I don’t want to be a part of any scene. I just want to do my thing, you know.”

That’s fair enough, and Lewis certainly rocks much harder than the more pop-oriented Eli “Paperboy” Reed, but as anyone who witnessed Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings’ performance at The Powerstation last December can attest, the woman can put on a sweat-drenched show of her own.

Those retro-soul fans who danced along to Sharon Jones and plan to get down with Black Joe Lewis will want to check out the latest from Ms Jones.

Soul Time! is the latest offering from Jones and her band. The dozen tunes round up various singles and non-album tracks that haven’t had an album release until now. This is no rag-tag collection of cast-offs. Songs like ‘Genuine’, ‘He Said I Can’ and ‘What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes’ are as powerful as anything she has released. Get on the good foot!

perfectly summed up their sound. While Lewis may not be so young, his music is indeed loud and carries plenty of punk attitude. A lot of that comes from living in a town notorious for its competitive live music scene.

“There are a lot of bands who live in Austin, there’s always somebody to play with. You’ve got to do something to stand out from all the others because there are so many players who are better than you. You’ve just got to have something that people will want to hear.”

The group has evolved into a seven-piece show band with a full-time horn section. The tracks on their latest album, Scandalous, find Brown and co-guitarist Zach Ernst fighting for time with the powerful horn section, which makes for exciting listening. So who decides if the guitars or the horns will dominate?

“We don’t really think about it,” says the soft-spoken Lewis. “On the first record [2009’s Tell ’Em What Your Name Is!] we wrote a bunch of the horn lines, but we have a different horn section now. They’re pretty bad-ass, so they came up with their own lines. A lot of bands will hire horns out, but we just have them. They’re part of the band. One big, happy family”, he says chuckling.

Back when that first record was released, Lewis came up with a term for his brand of music: garage-soul. Is that still relevant?

“That was something that we were saying a while back. Now it’s just rock’n’roll, you know.”

Black Joe Lewis and The Honeybears play The Powerstation in Auckland on Wednesday 7 December.

“IT’S GOING TO TAkE MORE fOR ME TO CRACk. I JUST TURNED 30 SO I’M AbOUT TO bE TOO OLD TO bE A ROCk STAR.”

WITH IMMORTALS, THE director formerly known as only Tarsem, now bearing his full name in the credits, has once again crafted a striking-looking picture where his extravagant stylishness is thwarted by considerable deficiencies in storytelling. Like his previous films, The Cell and The Fall, this Greek mythology flick about Theseus (Henry Cavill), a God-chosen peasant who goes up against the evil King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), contains much of his signature eye-filling visual

pageantry. But it’s still not enough to distract us from the flat characters, dull plotting and the fact that it’s really just a late ’50s Steve Reeves sword-and-sandal movie that’s been deep-fried in a vat of CG processing.

Tarsem’s imagery functions best when it draws on the mystical, otherworldly quality of visionary masters like Alejandro Jodorowsky or Sergei Parajanov, using colour accents, showy tableaux and florid costuming (see the first entrance of the Virgin Oracles) in a manner that’s momentarily transporting. But

the majority of the film thrives on its producers’ desire to repeat the success of their previous Greek mythos hit, 300, in effect making Immortals’ cornucopia of green screen backdrops, chiselled Bronze Age warriors, slow-mo action

and digital blood feel less impressive than it should.

It’s not without exhilarating moments though: the initial clash underneath the marble wall shows Tarsem’s surprisingly intelligible staging of large-scale action (imagine Oldboy’s legendary corridor fight multiplied by 100). But the film’s overall effect is a deadening, oppressive one, and coupled with its unfortunate post-converted 3D, migraine-inducing.

Review Aaron Yap

David Fincher will be reunited with Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker for his remake of the 1954 Disney adventure 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

The case of Natalie Wood’s death has been reopened after the LA County Sheriff ’s department received “additional information” 30 years after her “accidental drowning”. The 43-year-old West Side Story star mysteriously disappeared from her yacht in 1981 while her husband Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken were onboard.

Scarlett Johansson is making her directorial debut with an adaptation of the once-lost Truman Capote novel, Summer Crossing.

Star Trek 2 is set to begin shooting in January 2012.

IMMORTALSDirector Tarsem Singh Dhandwar

Mickey Rourke,

Starring Henry Cavill,

Stephen Dorff, Luke Evans

JUST OVER 10 years ago, only a few studios developed games for the Macintosh. One such company was called Bungie, and all reports promised their next game was going to be a significant incentive for gamers to ditch their PC and buy a Mac.

Cruel fate, or more precisely Micro$oft, had different ideas and they bought Bungie, needing a triple-A title for their upcoming Xbox console. The game was Halo: Combat Evolved and how the Mac-lovers howled. Ten years on and Microsoft have just released an anniversary version of Halo for the 360, and it’s

about time.The update is exactly what was

required: an exact copy of the original game but with the benefits of running on a more powerful system with better graphics, improved multiplayer handling and some other non-intrusive tweaks to gameplay.

Ten years have passed but these kinds of releases are reminders that fun isn’t directly correlated to polygons and textures, it’s about immersion, story and accessible gameplay. And Halo has got that covered.

Review Day Barnes

FOR THE LAST few years Bethesda has been concentrating on their highly-praised post-apocalyptic franchise, but you get the feeling it was to perfect their art and to streamline their systems so they could return to Tamriel for another episode of the Elder Scrolls. Skyrim is that

return and proof that practice makes perfect.

Think warriors, elves, orcs, magicians and even dragons, and you’re only halfway there with Skyrim. Magical artefacts, powerful runes and treasure maps are all in attendance in a story that takes you from prisoner to... well, let’s not spoil it.

The scope of the storytelling in Skyrim is multifaceted, working at microscopic detail in a telescopic frame where real motivations of greed

or valour (and even boredom) will draw you in to the subplots.

Skyrim feels more alive too and really tries to address the extremely wooden movement and downright moronic intelligence of the inhabitants which populated Oblivion.

In the end it all comes down to experience and this is the best fantasy experience you’re going to find for a long time.

Review Day Barnes

SKYRIM

Bethesda Game Studios

(PC/PS3/X360)

ANNIVERSARY

343 Industries/Bungie/

Certain Affinity

HALO

(X360)

AND THE HONEYBEARS

BEIRUTMON16 JAN

FRI27 JAN

WEDS22 FEB

TUE28 FEB

WED7 MARCH

SAT31 MARCH NICK LOWE

TUE6 MARCH

BLACK JOE LEWISWEDS7 DEC

ADRIAN SHERWOODFRI16 DEC

THE SISTERS OF MERCYTUES

31 JAN KITTY DAISY & LEWIS

THE BLACK LIPS

URGE OVERKILL THURS

1 MARCH ROOTS MANUVA

THE DRESDEN DOLLS

www.powerstation.net.nz

POWERSTATION

ROKY ERICKSONWED

14 MARCH THE DIRTY THREE

THE DAMNEDWED25 JAN

SOLD OUT

8370437AD

Hours before Black Sabbath played their first New Zealand show at the Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival in January 1973, young Kiwi promoter Barry Coburn was summoned to the caravan the band were using as a makeshift dressing room. In his thick Midland accent, Ozzy Osbourne said, “When we come on, we want a burning cross – make it happen”. Wanting to please the band on the first date of their tour, the young promoter agreed.I WAS 22 when I promoted Led Zeppelin’s show at Western Springs in February ’72. The year before I had negotiated the deal with their manager, Peter Grant, in the UK.

In 1972 I travelled through Japan, Beirut and Germany, not only sourcing acts for the forthcoming festival but also plugging Split Ends to radio stations I had written letters to. I took sick along the way, and my diabetic

condition didn’t help. I landed emaciated in the UK, and in need of medical attention. A friend put me on to William Burroughs, who in turn organised a hasty appointment with a Harley St professional specialising in naturopathic medicine. He advised me that I needed to book myself in to get better.

Once I had recuperated, I made an important business appointment. Going to a mansion on the edge of Wimbledon Common, I saw vans were loading in lush purple carpet. I noticed that the carpet had been perfectly cut with perfect gold trim. This opulence didn’t go unnoticed, and I was greeted by a mouthy young woman in her late teens. “Did my daughter, Sharon, look after you?” was how Black Sabbath’s manager, Don Arden, greeted me. “I need to make it clear I am only interested

in you taking Sabbath if you can do Australia as well.” I agreed. I hadn’t toured acts in Australia before, but if it meant securing Black Sabbath for the Ngaruawahia Music Festival, I would do it. Don insisted the deal had to be contracted in New York through Sabbath’s agents, so I travelled to New York and cut a deal.

I scheduled Black Sabbath to play midnight on the Saturday of the festival, ‘coincidentally’ after Split Ends who I was managing. Earlier that day I was summoned by Black Sabbath with the request for the burning cross. I contacted the festival carpenter. We found wood, scrub, wire and whoever could help. We took the parts for the cross to the top of the hill and hastily erected a cross that would burn at midnight.

It was like a pagan ritual. At midnight the cross was lit as the band took the stage. Sabbath played most of their early material – ‘Iron Man’, ‘Sweet Leaf ’ and closed with ‘Paranoid’. The crowd were also treated to a rarely performed song, ‘Changes’. They loved it.

The original Black Sabbath line-up of Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Geezer Butler has reunited and will release a new studio album produced by Rick Rubin in 2012, followed by a world tour.

Black Sabbath sans Ozzy strolling down Vulcan Lane, Auckland. L-R Tony Iommi, Bill Ward & Geezer Butler

“I SChEDULED bLACk SAbbATh TO PLAy MIDNIGhT ON ThE SATURDAy Of ThE fESTIVAL, ‘COINCIDENTALLy’ AfTER SPLIT ENDS whO I wAS MANAGING.”

BLACK sABBATHAT ThE GREAT NGARUAwAhIA MUSIC fESTIVAL

7 JANUARy 1973

hISTORy MADE...

...AND IN ThE MAkING

HAD SOME OF those pundits who’ve been making our lives a misery of late conducted an exit poll on the crowd leaving The Powerstation on Friday night, they would have seen a compelling swing towards the kind of gargantuan grins and satisfied sighs that party poli-tricks can rarely muster. After an hour-plus in the company of Ethio-jazz founder Mulatu Astatke and his Melburnian cohorts, Black Jesus Experience, the pleasingly mixed-up crowd who filled The Powerstation to an optimum level left an overwhelmingly happy bunch.

Moving through gems from Ethiopia’s musical “golden age” (‘Yekermo Sew’, ‘Netsanet’, ‘Yekatit’, ‘Yegelle Tezeta’), 1972’s classic Mulatu of Ethiopia album (‘Dewel’, ‘Mulatu’) and right up to his recent work alongside The Heliocentrics (‘Cha Cha’, ‘Chik Chikka’) with a Coltrane cover thrown in, this was basically a well-weighted, greatest hits set of pentatonic power.

Aside from the sporadic interjections of the giant-size, superfluous rapper, Mr Monk, and a couple of unnecessary guitar solos, Black Jesus Experience were completely on point. Having now had the good fortune to witness the band play two quite differently slanted sets with Astatke, it isn’t hard to see why he approached the cosmopolitan outfit after first seeing them perform on tour in Addis Ababa. Since then, they have combined to give highlight

performances at the Melbourne Jazz Festival and on a tour of Australia in 2010, as well as being his band of choice at this year’s Big Chill festival.

Though we have been subjected

to some Australian aberrations playing behind international artists in the past, this hard working nine-piece band are no pick-up outfit. Any doubt about that was thoroughly expunged by the stunning keyboard work and driving dexterity of Thai Matus, who threatened to infringe on the old master’s spotlight with his solid playing throughout. On ‘Yegelle Tezeta’, which closed out the scheduled set, Matus added all the extra colour that’s necessary when there’s just a two-man horn section, sending furious runs up and down the keys. Inevitably ‘Yègellé Tezeta’, the song that was made famous by Broken Flowers and then famous-er still with Nas and Damian Marley’s sampling for ‘As We Enter’, got the biggest cheer of the night, though it was a close run thing.

Switching between his trademark vibes, percussion and a spell on the Rhodes, Mulatu was in his

element, winning over the crowd with his relaxed virtuosity, humble introductions and gentlemanly nature.

In an era of sham “legacy” acts and dubious reformations wringing the last dollar out of their gullible, nostalgia-blinded audience, this night was all class, in the here and now, and only possibly lacking a longer encore.

MULATU AsTATKEThE POwERSTATION, AUCkLAND fRIDAy 25 NOVEMbERReview Stinky Jim Photography Nick Kingstone

“ThIS wAS bASICALLy A wELL-wEIGhTED, GREATEST hITS SET Of PENTATONIC POwER.”

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NKULEE DUBE / KATCHAFIRE / HOUSE OF SHEM / KORA / 1814THREE HOUSES DOWN / CORNERSTONE ROOTS / SWEET & IRIE / SONS OF ZION

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27 - 28 JAN 2012 // ROTORUA INTERNATIONAL STADIUM

AUCKLANDTUESDAy 29Jordie Lane (Aus) w Matt Langley & Mel Parsons - Wine Cellar, Newton, 8pm, $15-$20Garage Daze - CrossRoads Bar & de Ville Cajun Restaurant, Ponsonby, 8pm, FreeAuckland Jazz & Blues Club - Cy Winstanley Group - Pt Chevalier RSA, Pt Chevalier, 7:30pm, $5Pop Panic Ft. Ricky Rile - Cassette Number Nine, Auckland CBD, 9pm, FreeAcoustic - Rakinos, Auckland CBD, 5:30pm, Free

wEDNESDAy 30Tim Finn NZ Tour - The Mercury Theatre, Auckland CBD, 8pm, $49Teenage Kicks - Cassette Number Nine, Auckland CBD, 9pm, FreeThe Aromatherapy Sessions - Ginger Minx, Mt Eden, 7pm, FreeGC Band Night - Grand Central, Ponsonby, 9pm, FreeChali 2na (Jurassic 5) - Studio, Newton, 8:30pm, $30-$45Playing Up - Rakinos, Auckland CBD, 9pm, FreeCreative Jazz Club - Neil Watson’s Zen Dogs - 1885 Britomart, Auckland CBD, 8pm, $5-$10Wednesday R&B Jam Night - Flo Bar & Cafe, Newmarket, 9pm, Free

ThURSDAy 12 a.m. Orchestra - Wine Cellar, Newton, 8pm, FreeCassette Allstars - Cassette Number Nine, Auckland CBD, 10pm, FreeKurt Vile & the Violators & Alastair Galbraith - Kings Arms, Newton, 8pm, $30Lamplight EP Release Party - The Thirsty Dog, Newton, 8:30pm, $10Parents and Losses - Whammy Bar, Newton, 9:30pm, FreeThe Drop - Rakinos, Auckland CBD, 8pm, Free

fRIDAy 2Craft.y - UFO Live Music Venue, New Lynn, 8:30pm, $10Nocturnal Collections - Sharpie Crows, Wilberforces & Headsp - The Lucha Lounge, Newmarket, 9pm, $5Caspa with Dynamite MC and Datsik (Auckland) - Studio, Newton, 10pm, $30-$45

Illuminate Paint Party Presents Bloodbath - ASB Showgrounds, Epsom, 9pm, $49-$349The Turnaround Presents Grooveman Spot (Jpn) - The Bacco Room, Auckland CBD, 11pm, $20Be Free Fridays - Be Club, Auckland CBD, 10pm, FreeSam Hill, Wade Marriner & Guests - Trench Bar, Auckland CBD, 9pm, FreeChico con Tumbao - Besos Latinos Restaurant, Auckland CBD, 7:30pm, FreeUlcerate with Stone Angels & Scaphist - Rising Sun, Auckland CBD, 9pmTall Poppies - The Crib, Ponsonby, 10pm, FreeToni Childs - Unlugged & Intimate - Ascension Wine Estate, Matakana, 8:30pm, $49-$89.90

SATURDAy 3George FM presents The Roots Festival - Auckland Town Hall, THE EDGE, Auckland CBD, 8pm, $45Cold Chisel - Light The Nitro Tour 2011 - Vector Arena, Auckland CBD, 7:30pm, $99.90The Checks Deadly Summer Sway Album Tour 2011 - Onewhero Rugby Club, Onewhero, 8pm, $20-$25Toni Childs Charity Concert - Michael Park School, Ellerslie, 7pm, $89Tourettes with The Vietnam War and More - Kings Arms, Newton, 8pm, $10Get Loaded! 2012 Release Tour - InkCoherent, Newton, 10pm, $10The Reputations - Sawmill Cafe, Leigh, 9:30pm, $10Stopover ft. EDX (Switzerland) - InkCoherent, Newton, 10pm, $15Freaky Meat, Plum Green and Benny Profane - The Lucha Lounge, Newmarket, 8pm, $10Miho Wada’s having a Pyjama Party - One 2 One Cafe (121), Ponsonby, 8pm, $0-$5Stonerfest 2011: Northern Lights - Whammy Bar, Newton, 8pm, $15-$20November Zulu, Dakoda & Fire at Will - Backbeat Bar, Newton, 9pm, $5-$10Shelter with Special Guest Tim Walker - 4:20, Newton, 8pm, $8-$10

SUNDAy 4Pajama Club with Special Guests - Kings Arms, Newton, 8pm, $43Blues in the Boat House - Riverhead Tavern, Riverhead, 2:30pm, $15

NZ Blues Brothers Tribute Show - Riverhead Tavern, Riverhead, 2pm, $15Ministry of Sound presents The Sound of Dubstep - Be Club, Auckland CBD, 10pm, $10Outer Base - Sawmill Cafe, Leigh, 3pm, FreeFrank E Evans Band - Dogs Bollix, Newton, 5pm, FreeStarlight Sundays - The Windsor Castle, Parnell, 5pm, FreeSoulsista - Juice Bar at The Windsor Castle, Parnell, 7pm, FreeSunday Jazz, Rock, Reggae Session - Shooters Saloon, Kingsland, 2pm, FreeSunday Sessions hosted by Club Groove - Flo Bar & Cafe, Newmarket, 4pm, Free

MONDAy 5VIVA Jazz Quartet - The Windsor Castle, Parnell, 6pm, Free

NORTHLANDfRIDAy 22 Wheel Drive - Kamo Club, Whangarei, 7pm, FreeAbout Time Jazz Trio - Butter Factory Wine Bar, Whangarei, 6:30pm, Free

SATURDAy 3Farmageddon - Waipu Cove Private Estate, Bream Bay, 1pm, $69Unknown Peace - Tikipunga Tavern, Whangarei, 10pm, $5

SUNDAy 4Lazy Sundays - Art at Wharepuke, Kerikeri, 12pm, Free

THE COROMANDELSUNDAy 4Soul Sax Plus - Tairua Landing, Tairua, 12pm, Free

WAIKATOwEDNESDAy 30Jordie Lane (Aus) w Matt Langley & Mel Parsons - Biddy Mulligan’s Irish Pub, Hamilton, 8pm, $15-$20

ThURSDAy 1Tim Finn NZ Tour - Clarence St Theatre, Hamilton, 8pm, $49Out of Time - Diggers Bar, Hamilton, 9pm, $10

fRIDAy 2Upper Hutt Posse ‘Declaration of Resistance’ Tour - The Delta, Ngaruawahia, 9pm, $15New Blood - The Bedroom’s 1st Birthday - MonkeyFeather, Hamilton, 10pm, Free

SATURDAy 3Zion Hill Album Release Show with the One Drop Natives - Huntly RSA, Huntly, 8pm, $10-$20

HAWKE’s BAY / GIsBORNETUESDAy 29Hayley Westenra – 10th Anniversary Homecoming tour: SOLD OUT - Napier Municipal Theatre, Napier, 7:30pm, $75-$85

ThURSDAy 1The Checks Deadly Summer Sway Album Tour 2011 - Poverty Bay Club, Gisborne, 8pm, $20-$25

fRIDAy 2Dearly Departed Album Release Tour - The Cabana, Napier, 8pm

SATURDAy 3Back to The Grail - Sanctuary Sounds, Pukehou, 12pm, 12am, $0-$40Deathpunkfest 2011 - The Cabana, Napier, 9pmAlex and BB - Hastings Operatic Society Theatre, Hastings, 8pm

BAY Of pLENTYwEDNESDAy 30Swamp Thing Ft. Michael Barker & Grant Haua - The Pheasant Plucker, Rotorua, 8:30pm, Free

ThURSDAy 1Bay Salsa - Buddha Lounge, Tauranga, 8pm, $2Waihi Beach Pub Battle of the Bands - Heat Three - Waihi Beach Hotel, Waihi Beach, 7:30pm, $5LSG Group - The Pheasant Plucker, Rotorua, 9pm, Free

fRIDAy 2The Checks Deadly Summer Sway Album Tour 2011 - Illuminati Superclub, Tauranga, 8pm, $20-$25The Riff Raff - AC/DC Tribute Band - Kalah Bar, Rotorua, 7pm, $10

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SATURDAy 3Upper Hutt Posse ‘Declaration of Resistance’ Tour - The Commercial Hotel, Whakatane, 9pm, $15The M Six Live - Rose & Thistle Tavern, Tauranga, 6:30pm, FreeGave You What You Wanted: CD Release Tour - Brewers Bar, Mt Maunganui, 8pmTeazar’s 1st B’day With Copious Ale and Harvest - TEAZAR Lounge Bar & Night Club, Rotorua, 9pm, $5

MONDAy 5Jimmy & Perry - The Pheasant Plucker, Rotorua, 7pm, Free

TARANAKIfRIDAy 2Dancing Through the Decades - TSB Theatre - TSB Showplace, New Plymouth, 6pm, $79

SATURDAy 3Katy - The Katy Perry Tribute - Theatre Royal - TSB Showplace, New Plymouth, 7pm, $24.99-$60

MANAWATU / WHANGANUIThURSDAy 1New Zealand Cuban Festival - Whanganui Racecourse, Whanganui, 10am, $180-$270

fRIDAy 2darky roots + Aio + Hikoikoi - The Royal, Palmerston North, 7:30pm, $20Shuft.i featuring Erna Ferry - The Celtic Inn, Palmerston North, 9:30pm, FreeAlex and BB - Savage Club Rooms, Whanganui, 7pmNew Zealand Cuban Festival - Whanganui Racecourse, Whanganui, 10am, $180-$270

SATURDAy 3Stomping Nick & Boss Christ - Space Monster, Whanganui, 9pmNew Zealand Cuban Festival - Whanganui Racecourse, Whanganui, 9am, $180-$270

SUNDAy 4New Zealand Cuban Festival - Whanganui Racecourse, Whanganui, 9am, $180-$270

WELLINGTON TUESDAy 29The 2011 Classic Hits Acoustic Church Tour with Bic Runga - Cathedral of St Paul, 7pm, $65SFBH Presents The Prophet Summer Series - San Francisco Bath House, 6:30pm, FreeRodger Fox’s Wellington Jazz Orchestra - Sandwiches, 8:30pm, Free

wEDNESDAy 30Miles Calder & the Rumours, with Oskar Herbig and Guests - Happy, 7:30pm, $5The 2011 Classic Hits Acoustic Church Tour with Bic Runga - Cathedral of St Paul, 7pm, $65Dial Square, Diving, Us As Robots - Mighty Mighty, 9:30pmThe Session - Matterhorn, 10pm, Free

ThURSDAy 1Jordie Lane (Aus) w Matt Langley & Mel Parsons - Happy, 8pm, $15-$20The Wanted Sessions Xmas Hoedown - Mighty Mighty, 8pm, Free

Caspa with Dynamite MC and Datsik (Wellington) - The Front Room, 10pm, $30-$45Jurassic 5 - Chali 2na - San Francisco Bath House, 8pm

fRIDAy 2Tim Finn NZ Tour - Bodega, 8pm, $49Cold Chisel - Light The Nitro Tour 2011 - TSB Bank Arena, 7:30pm, $99.90The Mantarays - Mighty Mighty, 10pmStomping Nick & His Blues Grenade - Meow, 8:30pmWreck on the Highway #6 - Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth - Meow, 8pm, $5

SATURDAy 3The Great Wellington Party DJ Battle - Vol.1 - Sandwiches, 11pm, FreeRio Hemopo - Matterhorn, 11pm, FreeAxemen with Terror of the Deep - Mighty Mighty, 10pmChow Dwn - Chow Tory, 10pmDearly Departed Album Release Tour - Bodega, 8pmThe Arvo Show presents Dubside of the Hill - The Southern Cross Bar and Restaurant, 4pm, Free

SUNDAy 4Stomping Nick & His Blues Grenade - Evil Genius Records, 2pmDine with Pianist Bill Wollerman - Days Bay Pavilion, Lower Hutt, 6pm, FreeLive Jazz with The Troubles - Happy, 8:30pm, FreeThe Boptet - The Lido Cafe, 7pm, FreeThe Sunday Jazz Club - Public Bar & Eatery, 7:30pm, FreeRecovery Sessions with The Dreamers - The Southern Cross Bar and Restaurant, 3pm, Free

NELsON/TAsMANwEDNESDAy 30Alex and BB - Mussel Inn, Golden Bay, 8:30pm

fRIDAy 2Jordie Lane (Aus) w Matt Langley & Mel Parsons - Fairfield House, Nelson, 8pm, $15-$20

SATURDAy 3Tom Rodwell - The Free House, Nelson, 8pm, $15

SUNDAy 4Music on the Lawn - Nelson Ukulele Orchestra - Woollaston Estates, Upper Moutere, 1pm, Free

MARLBOROUGHThURSDAy 1Alex and BB - Le Cafe, Marlborough Sounds, 8pm

SATURDAy 3Luckless & Bond Street Bridge on Tour - Le Cafe, Marlborough Sounds, 8pm, $10Jordie Lane (Aus), Matt Langley, Mel Parsons & Guests - Le Cafe, Marlborough Sounds, 8pm, $20-$25

CANTERBURYThURSDAy 1Axemen and Special Guests - Darkroom, 9pm, FreeThe Black Velvet Band - Becks Southern Alehouse, 8pm, FreeFrom Sydney: Michael Gordon Trio - CPIT, 8pm, $10-$15

fRIDAy 2Axemen, Lo-Liners, Dark Matter & Cranks - Naval Point Yacht Club, Lyttelton, 9pmLuckless & Bond Street Bridge on Tour - The Brewery, 8pm, $10The 2011 Classic Hits Acoustic Church Tour with Bic Runga - St Michael & All Angels Church, 7pm, $65Awakened Inferno + Guests - Zebedees, 8:30pm, $5D’sendantz - Becks Southern Alehouse, 9pm, Free

SATURDAy 3Under The Big Sky : A Night of Country and Blues - Alpine Springs, Lake Tekapo, 7pm, $36The 2011 Classic Hits Acoustic Church Tour with Bic Runga - St Michael & All Angels Church, 7pm, $65Bassfreak’s 1st Birthday featuring State of Mind & Trei - Three Six Three Cafe & Bar, 9pm, $15-$25

SUNDAy 4Tim Finn NZ Tour - Rangiora Town Hall, Rangiora, 8pm, $49Jordie Lane (Aus) w Matt Langley & Mel Parsons - Nor’Wester Cafe, Amberley, 5pm, $25

MONDAy 5The 2011 Classic Hits Acoustic Church Tour with Bic Runga - St Mary’s Anglican Church, Timaru, 7pm, $65

WEsT COAsTTUESDAy 29Luckless & Bond Street Bridge on Tour - Blue Ice Cafe, Franz Josef, 8pm, $10

OTAGOwEDNESDAy 30Luckless & Bond Street Bridge on Tour - Chicks Hotel, Dunedin, 8pm, $10

ThURSDAy 1Luckless & Bond Street Bridge on Tour - The Penguin Club, Oamaru, 8pm, $10Dirt Floor Alliance - Knocking On the Door of Summer Tour - Chicks Hotel, Dunedin, 9pm, $10Flip Grater - The Penguin Club, Oamaru, 7:30pm, $15

fRIDAy 2Flip Grater - Chicks Hotel, Dunedin, 7:30pm, $15

SATURDAy 3Left. Or Right Vinyl Fundraiser Show - 12 Below - XIIB, Dunedin, 9pm, $10-$15Rhythmonyx - The World Bar, Queenstown, 10pm, Free

sOUTHLANDwEDNESDAy 30Dirt Floor Alliance - Knocking On the Door of Summer Tour - Redcliff Cafe, Te Anau, 8pm, Free

has teamed with Eventfinder for gig listings. To get your gig considered, go to eventfinder.co.nz and submit your show for publication. Due to space constraints, we can’t guarantee that every show will be listed.

The Datsuns will be in New Zealand for shows in January and early February with The Checks, Street Chant and Transistors opening… Street Chant are back from their US dates with The Lemonheads – an interesting experience, by all accounts… Jim Wilson of Phantom Billstickers has relocated to Auckland – God help us… New Rackets single and video possibly their best yet… TimeOut’s new phone app is off the chain – download it to your smartphone immediately… Real Groovy recently received a shipment of Third Man vinyl, and it’s already out the door – expect another shipment soon… Much activity on York St in Newmarket with the Lucha Lounge getting hip new neighbours… The Clean’s show at Kings Arms was a sold-out and swinging affair – excellent vibe with appearances from two Auckland femme fatales of yesteryear, Celia Pavlova ex King Loser and Jamie Jetson from the Idle Idols enjoying the show from side-stage… Cat Venom have started recording with Rohan Evans from Whammy at the venue itself… god bows to math play Australia in April… Much talk about how much fun the Auckland Flying Nun tribute night was, with South Auckland’s Joey Ramone look-a-like Chris Rakete joining X-Ray Fiends in a rendition of Mint Chicks’ ‘She’s Back on Crack’… Sola Rosa soon to be creating waves on their first US tour which starts in New York and then heads over to the North West, travelling down the West Coast and finishing in San Diego on 10 December… And who are Bra Sweat?

Rio Hemopo and Justin ‘Fire-fly’ Clarke play The Matterhorn on Saturday night. Expect banjos, MPCs and a whole lotta Polynesian soul…You know summer is on its way when they start serving cold drip coffee at Customs Brew Bar on Ghuznee St – roll past for the ulti-mate coffee experience… Local food bloggers HungryAndFrozen and HeartBreakPie are running some serious game right now – check them out at hungryandfrozen.com and heartbreakpie.com… Wellington’s

rap karaoke band The Fabulous Supperclub Shakedown have been seriously rocking crowds at venues around the city. You haven’t lived if you haven’t seen them play R. Kelly’s ‘Ignition (Remix)’… Lovers of daytime drinking, vintage dresses, old records and baked goods rejoice! The Mighty Mighty Markets are in full effect at Mighty Mighty, this Saturday from 1-5pm… Afterwards, you can wear your new threads to Pajama Club, playing San Francisco Bath House the very same night… A lot of good in-store performances are going down at Rough Peel Music on Viv-ian St and Evil Genius Records in Berhampore – check their Facebook pages for more details… Upper Hutt Posse play Bar Bodega on Thursday 8 December with a full live band… Former Palmie North resident DJ SMV has just dropped his solo album Soul Train’d – download it for free at htownvillains.com... Local reggae crew Niceup are hosting Newtown Top Ranking, a weekly Saturday afternoon session at Cafe Baobab in Newtown. Regular DJs include Art Official and Hawkeye. And in other Niceup related news, they’ve has just launched their own YouTube channel, Niceup TV, hosted by Israel Starr, son of The Mighty Asterix. Hit up youtube.com/user/NiceUpTV for interviews and exclusive content.

Dux Live has had to postpone its opening yet again – now looking at early December with The Coalrang-ers set to be the first act. Lindon Puffin had to reorganise his album release upon hearing the new venue would not be ready, and his show was moved to The Brewery, which has done a great job making the venue sound better... Beastwars play a one-off free show at Dux Live after the opening on Friday 16 December – support from The Laon, Lupus Luna, The Doyleys and shock-rock-ers, Hayne… Delaney Davidson has returned to town and is opening for Kitty, Daisy & Lewis on their two New Zealand shows… Transistors will release a new single very soon… Lyttelton’s Runaround Sue who fea-tured on The Harbour Union album have their debut album, Tonight Ex-pect Delays, ready for release…Tim Finn plays the Rangiora Town Hall on 4 December with The Sami Sis-

ters supporting… The Manderville Music Festival (10 December) fea-tures The Warratahs, The Eastern and The Coalrangers… Ash and the Matador played a great set of original ’90s influenced rock to an en-thusiastic Yot Club crowd last Friday. Unfortunately their bass player takes off for his OE in December, but still a band to keep an ear out for.

Sunley Band have released the Not the Sunley Band album on Bandcamp = parody band awesome-ness... Authentic Chic are taking their bad-boy noise to Auckland for shows this month – more on their Tumblr… Feastock 2012 planning is in the works… Mokonui holding a local music celebration at Sam-my’s soon… Idiot Prayer to play Christchurch shows – cover your ears and lock up your daughters.... Dr Glam releases ‘Wonky John Key’ parody on YouTube – worth a look, with advance apologies to Craig Smith… Chickstock II on again soon… Mestar’s Steamer album from July 2000 now on Bandcamp – retro loveliness… Dunedinmusic.com website rebuild in the offing... Black Boy Peaches nationwide tour due to be announced… High school label Moemoea Records have got through to the Nationals of the Young Enter-prise Scheme – two potential awards await these talented kids.

Got some news for More Volume? Email us at morevolume@volumemagazine.co.nz.

BLACK JOE LEWIS AND THE HONEYBEARS Wednesday 7 December – The Powerstation, Auckland

KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS W/ ALASTAIR GALBRAITHThursday 1 December – Kings Arms, Auckland

THE CHECKSThursday 1 December – PBC, Gisborne Friday 2 December – Illuminati, TaurangaSaturday 3 December – Onewhero Rugby Club, OnewheroSaturday 10 December – Yot Club, Raglan

GUITAR WOLFMonday 12 December – The Dux, Christchurch (free) Tuesday 13 December – None, Dunedin Wednesday 14 December – Bodega, Wellington Thursday 15 December – Static, Hamilton Friday 16 December – Cassette Number Nine, Auckland

BEIRUT Saturday 14 January – San Francisco Bath House, Wellington Monday 16 January – The Powerstation, Auckland

FLEET FOXES Friday 13 January – Town Hall, WellingtonSaturday 14 January – Town Hall, Auckland

BIG DAY OUT 2012 Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Das Racist, Parkway Drive, Regurgitator, Cavalero Conspiracy, The Vaccines, Nero, Soundgarden, Kasabian, Royksopp, Mariachi el Bronx, Battles, Beastwars, Best Coast, My Chemical Romance and more Friday 20 January – Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland

TUNEYARDS Thursday 12 January – Kings Arms, Auckland

DEERHOOF Saturday 7 January – Whammy Bar, Auckland Sunday 8 January – Bodega, Wellington

FAT FREDDY’S DROP’S ONE DROPMonday 2 January – Ascension Wine Estate, Matakana w/ TrinityRoots & Cornerstone RootsSaturday 7 January – Black Barn, Havelock North w/ The Nudge

HORACE ANDY & SHAPESHIFTER Thursday 29 December – Ascension Vineyard, Matakana Monday 2 January – Riwaka Hotel, Riwaka Friday 6 January – Brewers Field, Mt Maunganui Saturday 7 January – Waihi Beach Hotel, Waihi Beach

UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA Friday 16 December – San Francisco Bath House, Wellington Saturday 17 December – Kings Arms, Auckland

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY Thursday 15 December – San Francisco Bath House, Wellington Friday 16 December – Kings Arms, Auckland

NICK LOWE 31 March – The Powerstation, Auckland

ROKY ERICKSONWednesday 7 March – The Powerstation, Auckland

RYAN ADAMSTuesday 6 March – The Regent Theatre, DunedinThursday 8 March – The Civic Theatre, Auckland

THE BLACK LIPS Tuesday 28 February – The Powerstation, Auckland

THE SISTERS OF MERCY Wednesday 22 February – The Powerstation, Auckland

SPLORE 2012Erykah Badu, Hudson Mohawke, DJ Qbert and Reeps One, Soul II Soul, Africa Hitech, Gappy Ranks, Shortee Blitz, The Yoots, @Peace, Scratch 22, Disasteradio, Alphabethead, Earl Gateshead, The Nudge, AHoriBuzz, The SmokeEaters, Hermitude and more17-19 February – Tapapakanga Regional Park, Auckland

ST JEROME’S LANEWAY FESTIVAL Anna Calvi, Feist, The Horrors, Gotye, Laura Marling, Pajama Club, SBTRKT Live, Shayne P. Carter, Washed Out, Twin Shadow, M83, Cults, Girls, EMA, Yuck, Toro Y Moi, Wu Lyf, Glasser, Opossom, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Austra, Transistors and moreMonday 30 January – Silo Park, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland

THE DAMNED Wednesday 25 January – The Powerstation, Auckland

DUM DUM GIRLSFriday 6 January – Kings Arms, Auckland

THE DRESDEN DOLLSFriday 27 January – The Powerstation, AucklandSaturday 28 January – Opera House, Wellington

JOE SATRIANI, STEVE VAI AND STEVE LUKATHER – G3 Sunday 25 March – Logan Campbell Centre, AucklandMonday 26 March – Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington

ADRIAN SHERWOODFriday 16 December – The Powerstation, Auckland

REGURGITATORWednesday 18 January – San Francisco Bath House, Wellington

KITTY, DAISY & LEWISTuesday 31 January – The Powerstation, Auckland Wednesday 1 February – Bodega, Auckland

URGE OVERKILLTuesday 6 March – The Powerstation

DIRTY THREEWednesday 14 March – The Powerstation, Auckland

ARIEL PINK’S HANUTED GRAFITTI Tuesday 13 March – Kings Arms, Auckland Wednesday 14 March – Bodega, Wellington

ELTON JOHNfORSyTh bARR STADIUM, DUNEDIN fRIDAy 25 NOVEMbERReview Deirdre Robert Photography Roger GrauwmeijerTHIS WASN’T MY first foray into Rocket Man territory, and based on previous performances I’d experienced, I had high expectations for this one. And so did Dunedin. The air of anticipation was thick, the streets surrounding the Octagon packed, and there was a buzz in the city that wasn’t anything to do with the impending elections. The Nats and Greens did try to profit off the concert buzz, mind you, each taking to an opposite side of the road near the stadium entrance. Points to the Greens for adding a bit of bedazzled style to their outfits.

There’s no telling what particular persuasion John fans might be. In fact there’s no categorising them at all. The Forsyth Barr Stadium was packed with an equal dispersion of men and women, ranging from a child who looked to be all of six years of age to an elderly lady enthusiastically waving her glow stick. Many were adorned with oversized

spectacles, feather boas, hats and Elton-esque suits to boot.

It wasn’t long before it was John was onstage to entertain the audience, opening the show with rock anthem ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’, followed by ’80s classic ‘I’m Still Standing’ – quite the apt title when you consider John turned 64 this year.

For a man who’s been gigging for over 40 years and who recently completed his 3000th concert, John still has a passion for live performance that’s infectious. The fun police trying to quell dancing audience members had no chance as fans descended onto the pitch behind the sound console to let loose. It wasn’t long before even the most reserved audience members were up in their seats dancing, too.

Over the course of the night John dipped into his vast catalogue of hits: ‘Tiny Dancer’ (which he dedicated to the ladies), ‘Philadelphia Freedom’, ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, ‘I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues’, ‘Candle in the Wind’, ‘Honky Cat’, ‘Bennie and the Jets’, ‘The Bitch is Back’ and ‘Daniel’, to name but a few. ‘Rocket Man’ was a particular treat, building to an epic piano and soulful vocal climax that stretched the song out past 10 minutes.

There were a couple of points where the show lost momentum when John covered songs from newer and lesser known albums. That said, a funked-up song from his recent collaboration with Leon Russell still managed to get the audience going.

John’s voice hasn’t been able to hit those high notes of the ’70s for a long time now, but he can get away with it thanks to a backing band which

includes the likes of Rose Stone, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and original member of Sly and The Family Stone, as well as drummer Nigel Olsson, an original member of the 1969 Elton John band, and Davey Johnstone, John’s guitar, mandolin, and banjo player since 1971.

Stopping only to stand up and thank the crowd after each song, it took two and a half hours for John to have his first break. The encore kicked off with ‘Your Song’, which John dedicated to the audience. In a perhaps surprising move, he ended the show with a mash up of his Lion King soundtrack hits, ‘Circle of Life’ and ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’.

Three hours later, and no one could complain of not getting their money’s worth. Fans were on a high as they jammed the exit points, and the Forsyth Barr Stadium was no longer a rock’n’roll virgin.

“ThERE’S NO TELLING whAT PARTICULAR PERSUASION JOhN fANS MIGhT bE. IN fACT ThERE’S NO CATEGORISING ThEM AT ALL.”

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Chris Orange & Jed Towne

fETUs pRODUCTIONs, x-fEATUREs & ICUkINGS ARMS, AUCkLAND fRIDAy 25 NOVEMbERPhotography Keith Murdoch

THE CLEAN SAMMy’S, DUNEDIN SUNDAy 27 NOVEMbERPhotography Roger Grauwmeijer

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FRIDAY 27TH JANUARY POWERSTATION - AUCKLAND - T ICKETS FROM TICKETMASTER

SATURDAY 28TH JANUARY THE OPERA HOUSE - WELL INGTON - T ICKETS FROM TICKETEK

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POWERSTATION FRI 16 DECEMBERTICKETS FROM TICKETMASTERwww.powerstation.co.nz • www.muchmoremusic.co.nz

TOGETHER WITH

STINKY JIM &MC SLAVE’S LOGG CABIN

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WWW.BLACKJOELEWIS.COM // WWW.MUCHMOREMUSIC.CO.NZTICKETS FROM TICKETMASTER

WITH TYRA HAMMOND AND THE BLUE BIRDS

WEDNESDAY 7TH

DECEMBERTHE POWERSTATIONAUCKLAND