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13 MARCH 2012 #026 WOODEN SHJIPS – GO WEST, YOUNG MAN ELBOW – THE LEADERS OF THE FREE WORLD HALLELUJAH PICASSOS SPILL THE BEANS

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Volume Issue #026

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Page 1: VOLUME #026

13 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #02613 MARCH 2012 #026

WOODEN SHJIPS – GO WEST, YOUNG MANELBOW – THE LEADERS OF THE FREE WORLD

HALLELUJAH PICASSOS SPILL THE BEANS

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Facebook.com/volumemag @__volume__

EDITOR: Joe [email protected]

WEB EDITOR: Hugh [email protected]

DEPARTMENT OF VOLUME SALES: John [email protected]

DESIGN: Xanthe Williams

WRITERS: Gavin Bertram, Duncan Croft, Marty Duda, Duncan Greive, Jessica Hansell, Glenda Keam, Greg Locke, Jessica McAllen, Joe Nunweek, Hugh Sundae, Andre Upston, Aaron Yap

ILLUSTRATION: Mitch Marks

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Ted Baghurst, Jonathan Ganley, Rosabel Tan

IF THE PAST is indeed a foreign country, then music critics have treated it like their Ibiza. They’re there all year round, they behave loudly and badly, they leave their shit everywhere. It runs the risk of losing its strangeness, and spoiling what was once an interesting landscape. So where does that leave this issue – framed by Roky Erickson and Doug Jerebine, talking to the Hallelujah Picassos, swooning to the 70s psych revival of Wooden Shijps? Are we a 30-page Tiki Tour?

We say no. All in all, we think we fi ght a hard-won balance between the halcyon ‘then’ and a thriving ‘now’. That’s why we make a habit of pairing the archival delights of gigs past to what’s happening in NZ circa 2012 – why we take a look at the world of the single via Sound of the Overground next to the loved but languishing album format. And besides, in looking back you fi nd a lot that’s gone undocumented. The Picassos’ chat with Trevor Reekie this week only shows us the tip of an iceberg – a whole Auckland scene primed for rediscovery and reappraisal that the history books ignore. Likewise, Doug Jerebine’s album, in its reach and impact, may as well be new – more than a select cult classic, it went wholly unreleased for 40 years. I think VOLUME will keep veering from the standard tourist path whenever it makes these trips. I’m really glad I write for a magazine that does.

Though Sam Wicks and Hugh Sundae are off to SXSW to encounter all that’s new and novel, my fi rst guest issue of VOLUME is awash in Retromania. But don’t worry, we’re not turning into Mojo just yet.

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Dreamy New Jersey quartet Real Estate are here on our shores just in time to catch summer’s end, playing the Kings Arms in Auckland, San Fran Bath House in Wellington, and ReFuel in Dunedin. We’ve got double passes to each of their shows to give away – email [email protected] and let us know what Strokes cover the Real Estate boys tackled with aplomb last year.

How does it feel being the UK’s best dressed wordsmith? Best dressed? Did you say best dressed? I’ve had a bug up my arse since getting the last issue of GQ. Its an annual torture fest for me. I’ve seen lesser mortals getting in that best dressed list. I have an effortless style that has nothing to do with fashion.

I’m quite difficult to fit. I’m underweight for my height and its difficult to buy clothes off the rack. I haven’t had the financial wherewithal to start an account at a Saville Row tailor. I’ve always had to think about clothes just in order not to look like a clown. It’s given me a modus operandi if you like. To me, fit is very important. Most of my clothes are very, very, very, very old. Very old but as well-maintained as they can possibly be if you know what I mean. Modern clothes are badly made. I find something and I hang onto it forever. I’m a bit of a snob with clothes. Buy Cheap! Buy Twice!What drives John Cooper Clarke? My default setting is I’m appalled. I’ve had to stop reading newspapers. I’m not one of these people who find something in the current news and encapsulate it. I’ve never been one of them poets. I don’t get involved in narrow politics unless it’s by accident. Give us a haiku… You know my famous haiku don’t ya?… TO-CON-VEY ONE’S MOODIN SEV-EN-TEEN SYLL-ABLE-SIS VE-RY DIF-FICWe hear you like The Sonics ? I love the Sonics, yeah! I like a lot of them Nuggets bands – those American garage bands of the mid-60s. In fact, I hear you have Roky Erickson there. A request from Johnny Clarke …’TWO-HEADED DOG’!! Still a fan of Coronation Street ? I don’t really watch soap operas. The last soap opera I religiously kept up with was Dallas. But Coronation Street is an iconoclastic kind of soap opera, without a doubt. It was the first time we saw something that we knew about reflected in a soap opera form, to Tony Warren’s great credit. It’s a great creation.

John Cooper Clarke Wednesday 21 March – Dunedin Fringe Festival Thursday 22 March – Kings Arms, Auckland Friday 23 March – Bodega, Wellington Saturday 24 March – Marchfest, Nelson

JOHN COOPER CLARKE

GLENDA KEAM – PROGRAMME LEADER, CERTIFICATE AND DIPLOMA OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC, UNITECBefore I came to Unitec, I was lecturing at the University of Auckland’s Music School, and during that time I also completed my PhD, which was on notions of “national style” in NZ music. So I guess I’m a classically-trained composer – contemporary classical, but now I teach students who are into everything from death metal to R ‘n B with a broad emphasis on contemporary music’s sonic and economic developments over the past 100 years, which is what I was agitating for when I was at the University. Our students learn how to use all the industry-standard digital music software and applications – but they also learn about copyright, building a website, APRA, tax returns. It basically teaches them how to be fully-fl edged members of the music industry. It’s my sixth year teaching the course – the most rewarding part is seeing these (often young) students from totally distinct musical backgrounds collaborating at the end of the course to make something that’s utterly new, unique, and ours.

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SEND ME A POSTCARD

Self-playing robo-band The Trons play the Titirangi Festival of Music on Sunday 1 April. Details and tickets available on www.titirangifestival.com.

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presents

With their groundbreaking fusion of everything to reggae to nascent hip-hop to thrash, the Hallelujah Picassos defi ned a vibrant, close-knit and avowedly non-conformist time in the Auckland music scene that’s gone undocumented since – but a pair of retrospective compilations are putting the record straight. Trevor Reekie was there from the start as a producer, Pagan

Records owner and fan – for this Talking Heads, he and Picassos Peter McLennan and Harold ‘Roland’ Rorschach talked about what their music means now, fi tting in then, and fi nally reveal why they ditched Trevor’s label.Photography Ted Baghurst

TREVOR REEKIE: You know I’ve known both of you guys

for years and years and years but I

still don’t actually know how you guys got

together. I know there was the Rattlesnakes and then

the Hallelujah Picassos. Tell us how that came together.

PETER MCLENNAN: I was playing in this really awful industrial-dance duo called Death Korporation – that’s with a ‘K’ because we were industrial. We were full of crap. But we were doing a gig at DKD – there were basically a bunch of bad performance poets and then me and my mate turned up who was filling in for another guy who couldn’t make the gig – and we basically had to try and figure out some songs together, and one of those was ‘It’s A Man’s World’. Harold

came up to me two weeks later in a nightclub, saying ‘Oh man, I was

listening to all these horrible, horrible poets and you

guys made the night with that James

Brown cover!’ So we swapped numbers.HAROLD RORSCHACH: The funny thing about people like Peter, Bobbylon, and Johnnie Pain, they all were characters who stood out to me. And to this day, we’re all still friends. You talk to other people who are in band, very few people remain friends with their band members.PM: I think a lot of it was because we weren’t really musicians. Harold had his very own distinctive guitar sound because we only let him have two strings rather than the whole six; Bobbylon had never played drums before he joined the Picassos, he was a guitarist; Johnny Pain was a keyboard player before he joined the Picassos and played bass. We didn’t go to band practice and talk about guitar strings, we talked about records and comic books and films we’d seen that week.TR: There was that song ‘Clap Your Hands For Jesus’, which is when you made the jump from being the Rattlesnakes to Hallelujah Picassos, and then Pagan released that on this compilation called Positive Vibrations, but then you fucked off and went to Murray Cammick’s label (Wildside). Is that because they were offering big advances?PM: Have you met Murray? Big advance? We loved working with you and put out our first single on vinyl and that was our only vinyl release under our own steam, but we basically had a lot of material because all four bandmembers

wrote and sang, and we needed to do a CD-length album and I think

at that point you were offering

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presents

Beck’s has worked with local artists and up-

and-coming designers to create special labels

inspired by musicians, and the limited edition

bottles available in bars and specially marked

packs are the result of this project.

us cassette and vinyl, but we had 14 and 15 songs we wanted to record that wouldn’t suit the runtime.HR: It was never anything personal.TR: I know that Harold, but I was so surprised when Peter showed me a copy of that letter I wrote afterward, that was obviously written in jest.PM: That’s right – we must have done an interview we where might have slagged Pagan off, and Trevor basically wrote this letter that was like: ‘Fuck the Hallelujah Picassos. The only reason I signed them was because Roland said he’d have my baby.’

HR: I remember, people in the music industry were always quite nervous about not upsetting people. Like when the Flying Nun people were around, you couldn’t do anything to upset these fuckers! Those people had it all their own way! And then this album comes out just at the time they’re celebrating their 30th fucking anniversary. Just our luck.PM: That’s why we put this out, so that they’re not the only people rewriting history.TR: I always thought the Picassos had a sort of ‘shuffle’ mentality to their music even before there was such a thing as shuffle, you know what I mean? You had King Tubby over there, Bad Brains over here, punk over there. Do you think it worked against you in those days?HR: It worked with us for the people who wanted something

different. It worked against us for the people who had a very shallow spectrum of music outlook – they didn’t get it. PM: A lot of people labeled us eclectic, and when they labeled us that, they basically meant it as an insult. They thought we couldn’t make our minds up. We knew exactly what we were doing, we were just waiting for everybody to catch up.TR: Yeah, I was just gonna say – doing this album and going out and doing this promotion, I was wondering how you went about this describing your sound to younger journalists and audiences who perhaps didn’t know about the band.PM: We went up to bFM and did an interview there, and some of the young guys there were saying ‘I really like your CD’ and for them it doesn’t matter – the historical context is irrelevant, they just listen to it and go ‘It’s music.’ Whereas if we’re trying to explain it beyond that, you have to go into that context. That we were an inner-city band, among many inner-city scenes – living inner-city at that time was basically illegal, because there were plenty of empty warehouses after the ’87 crash, but landlords didn’t care who lived there. As long as no one told the Council, you were sweet.

To listen to the full audio of Hallelujah Picassos and Trevor Reekie in conversation, head to nzherald.co.nz/volume – live from 2pm Tuesday.

Hallelujah Picassos’ retrospective compilations Rewind The Hateman and Picasso Core Jukebox are out now – details on picassocore.blogspot.com.

Trevor Reekie hosts Radio New Zealand National’s Access All Areas and Hidden Treasures, exposing listeners to music’s illustrious past, present and future. Listen online at www.radionz.co.nz.

“A lot of people labeled us as ‘eclectic’, and when they labeled us that, they basically meant it as an insult. They thought we couldn’t make our minds up.”– PETER MCLENNAN

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IT’S MY GUESS that those readers who are partial to cardiac-inducing hard house or moshpit-friendly death metal have already left the building. Through no one’s fault, there are Ukrainian ukulele ensembles with more of a profile in New Zealand than Elbow.

“We always felt like the bridesmaid at a wedding,” explains the charming and loquacious Guy Garvey from his hometown of Bury. “And we were happy there, we were making a living and we were making enough to raise children and make more records, and that was the endgame from day one. Then suddenly it was like, ‘Wow, we

AFTER 20 YEARS of skirting the fringes of mainstream in the UK, it finally seems that Elbow’s days of being treasured by a few and ignored by many are over. This month the Northern England five-piece will swap arenas for two intimate nights at The Powerstation in Auckland.Text Andre Upston

can play much bigger venues and bigger festival slots and more people wanna know who we are’.”

Shining bright as the sun in a shop full of candles, their breakthrough song ‘One Day Like This’ from the 2008 Mercury Award-winning album The Seldom Seen Kidarrived like a field goal in overtime, with its life-affirming chorus adding gravitas to television coverage of the European Championship, the FA Cup, and the Beijing and Winter Olympics among many others.

“It just started getting synched to lots of different television programmes, and it put us on the map where most of the people in the

UK are concerned. It was a lovely thing and it was only at that point that we realised quite how loved we’ve been in our own country. I thought maybe we’d peaked but it doesn’t feel like it all of a sudden.”

Their rise in fortune means that by the time they set foot in The Powerstation, they will have performed 71 shows across the UK, Europe and the US in the last year.

Owning a comfortable space between the sweeping dynamics of Sigur Rós and the melodic chest-beating bravado of U2, Garvey believes Elbow’s music “either ends up being dramatic or fun or melancholy and introspective or

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incredibly romantic – these are the kinds of music we all love. We’re always looking, we’re always moving and we’re always trying to better ourselves.

“There’s a fascination with finding new sounds and what can be done, and there’s no greater feeling than if you’ve been frustrated and thwarted and not really done anything that knocks you out for a couple of weeks. Then a song comes along that all five of you love, and it just puts the world right again.”

Feted as the “finest lyricist now at work in Britain” by Q magazine and “The People’s Poet” by Word, Garvey regards the plaudits and acclaim heaped on him both hysterical and very flattering.

“It’s lovely that people pay attention to that side of things, and it makes me very proud,” he says. “Lyrically I have to go away and twist my own arm into working. I draft and redraft and redraft. They can morph from their original subject and become a completely different song, and if I had no time limits I would keep rewriting and rewriting. A lot of the great poets – not to compare myself at all – did several versions of their most famous work; you can always improve on an idea.”

The story of Elbow is a

bittersweet tale full of twists and turns. Disappointment, doubt and loss have been worn like a freshly-pressed uniform since the release of 2001’s Mercury-nominated Asleep in the Back, but for Garvey it comes down to friendship.

“We’re lucky that we found a pack that really enjoys each other’s company. Musically we all still impress each other and it reminds me how lucky I am to be in the band. We met when we were 17 and we had an idea, and that idea’s taken us all over the world and we’ve seen and done some amazing things and met people we’d never thought we’d meet. It’s been a fairytale, it really has.

“So the most important thing to us is that our friendships remain as stable as they are, as good as they are. They are my brothers. It’s somewhere between family, friends and having four wives.”

“Lyrically I have to go away and twist my own arm into working. I draft and redraft and redraft.”– Guy Garvey

ESSENTIAL ELBOW‘Asleep in the Back’ (music video)The greatest Elbow video for the title track of 2001’s Asleep in the Back sees the band re-imagined as puppets in a turn-of -the-century vaudevillian soap opera.

‘The Birds’ (live at Reading Festival 2011)The eight-minute Build a Rocket Boys! album opener. A prototype Elbow song. Generous dynamics: check. A groove the Kora boys would envy: check. An arms-aloft anthemic crescendo: checkmate.

‘Great Expectations’ (live acoustic)Informed by the sweet melancholy of unrequited love, this poignant ballad is tucked away near the end of 2006 album Leaders of the Free World.

‘Grounds for Divorce’ (live with the BBC Orchestra)“I’ve been working on a cocktail called grounds for divorce.” Not the fi rst Elbow song to mix drink metaphors, but the fi rst to do so to such devastating effect. This powerhouse live version is pumped up courtesy of the BBC Concert Orchestra.

‘One Day like This’ (live at Glastonbury 2008)Guy Garvey: “The atmosphere was just electrifying, the sun came out for us during that song and we had a ‘Glastonbury moment’. The crowd was bananas, and it was by far the biggest crowd we’d ever seen.”

Elbow plays The Powerstation in Auckland on Wednesday 28 March and Thursday 29 March.

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SINGLE OF THE WEEKTHE WEEK

Carly Rae Jepsen

Each week Duncan Greive performs some low grade analysis on the week’s New Zealand Singles Chart and reviews a few new release pop singles. To submit or suggest a track for review email [email protected] or tweet @duncangreive.

IT’S A BRAND NEW ERA, BUT IT FEELS GREATApart from Reece Mastin’s second week at number one, which is a bit of a bummer, there are any number of good things happening deeper into this chart. For starters there are eight new entries, of which at least four are objectively ‘not rubbish’ – if the whole chart kept up that ratio you’d start listening to the radio again, right?

I’ve reviewed a bunch of them before, namely Fun ft. Janelle

Monae (shockingly high at 11), The Far East Movement ft. Bieber, The Wanted, Emile Sandé and K’Naan ft. Nelly Furtado, so I’ll concentrate on the other three.

The first is Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’, a song by a Canadian (!), Idol competitor (!!), following up a John Denver cover (!!!). In case you were wondering, the exclamation marks are to indicate fear, rather than excitement. ‘Call Me Maybe’ is actually fine, really cool synth drops on the chorus and shrill, excited singing about nothing in particular. No issue with that.

The two local songs are pretty rough but. Tiki’s cover of ‘Over the Rainbow’ is a charity single for Starship, but I’m not here to rate the purity of men’s hearts or the causes they choose. It’s about the song, and this is just a bit maudlin and heartfelt for my liking.

Six60 are probably the band people who are really into the genre ‘New Zealand Music’ love the most. Literally their entire audience wears map-of-New-Zealand or ‘Born Here’ tees – they turn you away at the door with a sad shake of the head if you don’t comply.

There’s an appallingly recorded clip of this song live at the Coroglen Tavern in September of last year which has had over 30,000 views. One keyboard guy moshes super hard, while the other rolls his eyes in the back of his head because the music fully puts him in a trance. That’s probably all you need to know about ‘Forever’.

RIANZ TOP 10 NEW ZEALAND SINGLES CHART1 Reece Mastin – ‘Good Night’

2 Rida ft. Sia – ‘Wild Ones’

3 Cher Lloyd – ‘Want U Back’

4 Nicki Minaj – ‘Starships’

5 Ed Sheeran – ‘Lego House’

6 Train – ‘Drive By’

7 Katy Perry – ‘Part Of Me’

8 David Guetta ft. Nicky Minaj – ‘Turn Me On’

9 Chris Brown – ‘Turn Up the Music’

10 Annah Mac – ‘Girl In Stilettos’

CARRIE UNDERWOOD – ‘Good Girl’I can’t recall the last time I heard a chart song this riffy and direct – it seems to have fallen from favour since probably peaking around the mid-’80s, but set

against everything else on radio worldwide this sounds startlingly unaffected. Underwood won American Idol in ‘05, and this represents something of a departure from more regulation fiddle-soaked country-rock material like ‘Before He Cheats’ or ‘Cowboy Casanova’. ‘Good Girl’ would be pretty tough to play on the radio down here, but melodic, energetic, non-self-pitying rock music is way too scarce right now, and this is as fun as Pink or Kelly Clarkson at their most seething and outraged.

DANNY SAUCEDO – ‘Awesome’“I’m feeling great/ I’m feeling awesome,” sings Danny Saucedo on the chorus of his new single ‘Awesome’. A Swede born to Polish and Bolivian parents, Saucedo

makes Guetta sound like Morrissey here, a heartfelt paean to feeling awesome and having a great time. And so long as Basshunter keeps delaying that mythic fourth album we’ll have to keep seeking out lunatic Europop like this in lieu of the grandmaster himself.

DAPPY – ‘Rockstar’We edge closer to being able to make a compilation album called Rockstar consisting entirely of songs entitled ‘Rockstar’. So far it would feature Poison,

Nickelback, Hannah Montana, R. Kelly and Taio Cruz, amongst others, so obviously it would be one of the all time greats. Dappy’s contribution to the emerging genre is actually one of the better examples to date, with heavy synths and an awesomely silly solo to close out, along with Dappy making very unconvincing gunshot noises. He really is one of the funniest singers around right now, with this massive disconnect between the ‘example to the likkle youth’ he believes himself to be and the sordid reality. Pop has always thrived on such divergences though, so I always enjoy Dappy’s mad, heroically inoffensive music.

BIC RUNGA – ‘Tiny Little Piece Of My Heart’It boggles the mind to think of what’s happened to Bic Runga. With over 300,000 albums sold (the equivalent of

over 22 million in a market like the US) she makes one slightly left-field move in writing with ex-Mint Chick Kody Nielson and suddenly she’s entirely invisible. A pretty, romantic ‘60s-inspired pop song like this languishes with 1,000 views in two weeks, and nothing like a chart placing, from a CD which debuted at five (behind David Dallas’ The Rose Tint – an album which had been free to download for months) before disappearing from view. It’s a bizarre mass desertion, and entirely undeserved, because this is about as good as anything she’s released in her career to this point.

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8614705AA

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Listen, Whitey! – The Sounds of Black Power 1967-1974(Light in the Attic records)

CEREMONYZoo(Matador)Bay Area punk band started out as razor-treble “EEEYAGH”

power-violence stuff, and – well, they’ve turned into a pretty good indie rock fit for their Matador debut. It means they’re not the daring signing they seemed, but their new sound feels like the throat-shredding kind of pop-punk the scary older kids listened to at high school, with less agitprop and more McLusky-style sneering guffaw. So it’s decent.

DJ FOODThe Search Engine(Ninja Tune)DJ Food began as a sort of open-source project – enough

freeform vocal samples, loops and collages for you to make your own Coldcut album – but has coalesced circa 2K12 into 50 per cent actual choons, 50 per cent interludes. ‘GIANT’ uses The The’s Matt Johnson to dramatic effect over a perpetually-climbing keyboard line and whirring, percolating percussion. Elsewhere, though, there’s bloody dreadful electro-rock. Easy as you go.

THIS IS HELLBlack Mass(Rise)“Hi, I’m Bert from This Is Hell. We’re just doing a short

market research poll with the homeowner. Um… One, who the fuck are you to decide how choose to live our lives? Two, pollute the holy water and I’ll watch you drown – who needs salvation now? Three, do you believe in what you stand for or do I remain the last outlaw? Heard a thousand hardcore albums like this before? Okay, sir, thank you for your time.”

SPEECH DEBELLEFreedom of Speech(Big Dada)Mercury Prize-winning British

rapper is gradually casting off the beard-stroking “conscious” trappings that occasionally bogged down her debut – sure, there’s still titles like ‘Studio Backpack Rap’ and ‘Live for the Message’, but she’s nailing it with outré calls like “headphones, head down like a lesbian” and newly-confident production. ‘Blaze up a Fire’ has the courage to tie the London riots to the Arab Spring without sermonising – more English music should be so incendiary.

DIE ZORROSFuture(Voodoo Rhythm)Like a Me First and the Gimme Gimmes of flamingo

rockabilly (that campy, palm-and-tile hotel version of it that gets replicated in the European mainland). Novelty one-listen

covers of ‘Rehab’, ‘Black Sabbath’, and ‘Der Komissar’. Digging deeper, their Beatles medley feels like an intentionally funny act of sabotage, their Joe Meek tribute actually quite clever.

SCALPERButchers Bakers(scalper.bandcamp.com)East-London born, New Zealand-

settled Nadeem Shafi creates urban soundscapes – clanking breakbeats, Eastern melodies from the next fl at, blown-out guitar amps – that suit his place of birth as much as they do Auckland’s burgeoning immigrant communities. Shafi ’s own voice has the effect that Tricky’s did once, one long and threatening exhale that paradoxically feels like it’s sucking all the air from the room. Really impressive.

CHIDDY BANGBreakfast(Regal)You’ve already heard this frat-rap duo’s huge but rote

freestyle over MGMT’s ‘Kids’ – here’s more of the same, picking up off where we left Lupe Fiasco (spent force circling inward among sped-up indie rock samples). The same devastating stench isn’t on Chiddy Bang, though – this music will be effortlessly huge at white LLB undergraduate parties, but will never have to look back at the debris of cred forsaken.

BOB SEGER & THE SILVER BULLET BANDUltimate Hits: Rock and Roll Never Forgets

(Capitol)When I worked at Foodtown and wore a Clash wrist bracelet I’d get really angry at ‘Old Time Rock and Roll’ coming over the PA – how dare these reactionary cornballs look back at the same time that punk was blazing a trail forward? I should note that this was in, like, 2003. I can’t build my little imagined walls of “now-ness” and “then-ness” anymore and so a timely post-Kurt Vile Seger best-of hits the spot stealthily, brutally. I get it – broadly applicable nostalgia music for things that have been lost, good and bad.

THE ROBERT GLASPER EXPERIMENTBlack Radio(Blue NoteJazzy, elongated

r’n’b like this spent the decade dormant, and when it awoke, it was canned cloth-cap dogshit, really. Though this is Glasper’s record as an accomplished jazz pianist, he celebrates a raft of guest vocalists who were born to thrive in the space and fluidity he allows – Erykah Badu’s turn on ‘Afro-Blue’ and Mos Def’s limber performance on the drum-led title track excel.

Reviews Joe Nunweek

LISTEN, WHITEY! is for people like me. Not because I’m a whitey, mind you; and not because I’m a bad listener, either. Instead, this album is like a cram

sheet for lethargic readers – a category I ashamedly sit in. Archivist Pat Thomas’ research for a soon-to-be released book on the US Black Power movement of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s – also entitled Listen, Whitey! – led him to uncover a treasure trove of music and speeches.

He’s bundled these gems into an album which serves as a companion for said book, and is as much historical as it is musical. Public addresses from Civil Rights activist Stokely Carmichael and Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver sit side by side with spoken word offerings from hip hop forerunners Watts Prophets and The Original Last Poets.

Don’t fret if an audio book isn’t your idea of a good time. Listen, Whitey! boasts

a sterling musical selection, from funk and jazz through to acoustic folk. Whether it’s obscure (‘Free Bobby Now’ by the Black Panthers’ band, The Lumpen), rare (Bob Dylan’s out-of-print single ‘George Jackson’) or familiar (Marlena Shaw’s ‘Women of the Ghetto’), there’s plenty of powerful material that will appeal to music fans, historians and lazy readers alike.

Review Duncan Croft

ROSE QUARTZ’S TOP FIVE LIFESTYLE DRINKS

1: Coconut Water – procured from the inside of young green coconuts, this is a tasty, refreshing drink with super high levels of Potassium and other minerals. 2: Kombucha – a curious, slightly vinegary health tonic made using fermented tea, yeast and bacteria which gives the drink a mild effervescent quality. Kombucha is really big in LA!3: Elderflower Soda – an interesting and healthy alternative to regular soda or juice options that is also great in cocktails. We at Rose Quartz Blog enjoy its slightly tannic, floral bouquet.4: Pomegranate Juice – high in antioxidants and subject to a number of health claims including reducing cancer growth and lowering cholesterol. This is a rich and sweet beverage with very high levels of natural sugars – so please, be wary of this!5: Monster Energy – I’m not sure if any of us have ever actually tasted Monster but we’re in equal parts fascinated and disgusted by its raw, garish and overtly masculine graphic identity. The Monster Energy logo is also our favourite enduring #Slimepunk/Tumblr web art motif.

Keep up with all the gr8 new music and good vibes on rosequartz.blogspot.com.

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THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL meltdown has proven disastrous for many, but for Ripley Johnson it’s been beneficial.

Losing one’s job isn’t normally a good thing, but for the Wooden Shjips guitarist it forced his hand and made the band his primary focus.

“It’s really changed my life,” Johnson considers. “I just decided to make a go of it. I’d been working in office jobs for many years, so it was quite a lifestyle change. It’s been pretty exciting. Very freeing. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.”

The East Coast native had moved to San Francisco in search of a mythic Californian culture that encompassed Beat literature and the 1960s psychedelic revolution of the Haight-Ashbury. No wonder their 2011 third album was entitled West, and featured the Golden Gate Bridge on the cover.

Johnson says none of the four members of Wooden Shjips are from the West Coast, and that has an influence on how they view their adopted home.

“You have this idea of the West Coast and the Bay Area in particular that you get from music and literature,” he says. “You carry that with you and it does influence you to an extent. It’s not necessarily palpable when you’re in the city itself, but if you’re a music-obsessive like I am or really into

literature you just pick that up from some of your favourite artists.”

West, along with 2007’s Wooden Shjips, 2009’s Dos, and two compilations of singles, resonates with the spirit of liberation that has drawn generations of people to California.

Shades of narcotic English droners Spacemen 3 and Loop are recognisable,

as well as the more obvious touches of Velvet Underground, Hawkwind and various Krautrockers.

Wooden Shjips’ specifi c blend of space rock, psychedelia and Motorik rhythms was born out of a period where Johnson played with a group of non-musicians.

“The idea was to do really primitive improvisational rock,” he remembers.

Psychedelic spacemen Wooden Shjips have a prevailing fascination with the West Coast of the United States. Frontman Ripley Johnson talks to VOLUME before their New Zealand shows.By Gavin Bertram

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“The problem was because no one except for myself was really a committed musician, no one had instruments or any desire to play live shows. Eventually it fell apart. But [with keyboardist Nash Whalen, bassist Dusty Jermier, and drummer Omar Ahsanuddin] we sort of kept doing the same thing but with more committed musicians.”

And so Wooden Shjips was officially born in 2006, and carved a unique route through rock music over the next half decade.

Everything previous to West was recorded by the band in their practice room on eight-track reel-to-reel tape. This archaic though somewhat fitting method captured Wooden Shjips’ early charm.

Johnson says the limitations of that approach helped the band refine their aesthetic.

“It was very limited sonically,” he says. “But that was good for us I think; it allowed us to approach the music in a certain way and have our own process that tended to be really drawn out. We didn’t have resources so you work with what you have: you’re forced to confront your limitations and work within that.”

However, for West Wooden Shjips ventured into a San Francisco commercial studio, where their audio engineer friend Phil Manley helped guide proceedings over an intense six-day period of recording and mixing.

Although Johnson is satisfied with the result, he thinks the band may revert to type for the next one.

“It changed our approach completely,” he says of recording in a studio. “I was pretty happy with the ways it turned out, but we could have gone in there and come out with nothing. We may go back into a proper studio again, but I wouldn’t mind having a go at it ourselves one more time and take some more time with it. I’m a big Exile on Main Street fan, so I have dreams of hanging around and recording for months which is probably not very reasonable.”.

Wooden Shjips plays at Kings Arms in Auckland on Sunday 1 April and Bodega in Wellington on Monday 2 April.

“You’re forced to confront your limitations and work within that.”

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If you’ve wondered what happened to Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the pair at the centre of 2006’s runaway low-budget romance/musical hit Once, then The Swell Season should get you up to speed. They nabbed an Oscar for Best Song, hooked up – professionally and romantically – and toured extensively as The Swell Season, doing sell-out shows across America. Photographed in black-and-white, the doc works best as a companion piece to the movie and may prove to be a little dull for those unfamiliar with the couple as it doesn’t provide much of a back story.

A vital work, not only for what it represents for film, but creative expression in general, Jafar Panahi’s This Is Not a Film is one of this year’s WCS’s must-sees. Shot on the fly in his apartment with the help of his friend Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, the film was the result of Panahi

(Crimson Gold) awaiting the verdict for alleged “anti-regime” crimes which would see him banned from filmmaking for 20 years and imprisoned for six. Not too much occurs in its 75-minute running time: Panahi talks to his lawyer, feeds his pet iguana, revisits his unproduced screenplays. But what emerges is an exploratory, insightful meta-doco – as profoundly humanist and socially trenchant as any of his films – and deserving of the widest audience possible. The fact that it was smuggled into Cannes on a USB stick in a birthday cake should be worth the price of admission alone.

In recent times the Iraq/Afghanistan war has been the subject of gut-wrenching films such as The Hurt Locker and Restrepo. You can now add Danfung Dennis’s Oscar-nominated Hell and Back Again to that already compelling crop of war stories. Dennis, a photojournalist who was embedded with US Marines Echo Company in Afghanistan, found his stirring tale in 25-year-old Nathan Harris, a sergeant badly wounded in combat. Flipping between the routines of Harris’ life back in North Carolina as he begins a long and painful rehabilitation process, and Afghanistan, where we see him facing insurgencies, it’s a gruelling picture about the horrors of war extending beyond enemy lines and returning home with you to create an all-consuming purgatory.

Tony Krawitz’s account of the tragic death of Queensland man Cameron Doomadgee in police custody is fairly even-handed and sensitively made, but it’s definitely not something you’ll walk away from feeling indifferent. Based on Chloe Hooper’s book of the same name, The Tall Man has a superb investigative slant, unravelling the mysteries surrounding Doomadgee’s passing in grimly absorbing detail. But it’s also a haunting look at an indigenous community beset by domestic violence and welfare issues, and their fraught relationship with a justice system that would prefer to look away.

Rowland S. Howard, the gaunt, lanky guitarist for influential post-punkers The Birthday Party whose unique feedback-laced guitar sound drew the attention of Thurston Moore and Kevin Shields, gets a reverent, fitting tribute in Richard Lowenstein (Dogs in Space) and Lynn-Maree Milburn’s Autoluminescent. Packed with interviews with former bandmates, family members and friends, it’s a solid, affectionate, musically-comprehensive portrait of an unsung, enigmatic artist that should please longtime fans and inspire others to seek out his work.

SHOWCASE 2012WORLD CINEMA

The World Cinema Showcase is back in a couple of weeks to bring you an eclectic mix of cinematic delights from around the globe. To whet your appetite, here’s a sampling of some of the docos to be found in the programme.Text Aaron Yap

WORLD CINEMA SHOWCASE 2012Auckland 29 March–11 April Wellington 5 April–22 AprilDunedin 19 April–2 MayChristchurch 29 April–9 MayWorldcinemashowcase.co.nz

THE SWELL SEASON

HELL AND BACK AGAIN

THIS IS NOT A FILM

AUTOLUMINESCENT: ROWLAND S. HOWARD

THE TALL MAN

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Doug Jerebine / Jesse Harper London 1969

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Acetate label from 1969

Doug Jerebine and Dave Preston London 2011

Doug Jerebine travelled to the UK in the late-sixties, changed his name to Jesse Harper, and recorded one of the great lost psych-guitar masterpieces.

I HAD SUNG and played like this in New Zealand, but never my own songs. In fact, I had never written any songs, apart from ‘Metropolis’, recorded with the Embers. My friend Jimmy Sloggett was excited about it and wrote for violins. After being in the U.K. for a few months and hooking up with my Kiwi friend Dave Hartstone, Dave said one day, “Come on, Doug! You are an incredible guitarist and you can sing too. So write

some songs and let’s record them.”I replied, “No way! I’m into

playing live, not recording. I want to find some good musicians

and play with them, live. The real mission is find good musicians.”

Although I had concealed it, I was somewhat excited about composing. My main reluctance was in singing. I had worked with many talented and powerful singers, and felt that I could recognise a good

singer—and that I wasn’t one of them. Singing is a

gift: a timbre, a character, a power. Your own vocal chords

are your instrument, at your command; you are more or less

born with it. I wasn’t. This was my opinion, though I sometimes liked the joy of trying to sing.

My long-time saxophonist and dear friend Bob Gillett and I had had the company of certain outstanding musicians in New Zealand, but we were often stuck without a bass player and a drummer. Drummers were the most difficult to come by. There were good players, but they were not often in our circle for some reason or other.

In England, Dave introduced me to Dave Preston, a drummer from Liverpool. He had played with the Merseybeats and Nirvana—no, not the Nirvana of later fame—in fact he later told me that his Nirvana was the original Nirvana, and they received a handsome compensation from the “famous” Nirvana for using their name without permission. Preston lived

hard and used a lot of coarse language, but beneath that veneer I saw a man of gentle and modest heart. Again, I observed that he could play “fire-music”. I appreciated that he seemed to possess no ego, and was always ready to listen to how I wanted the music to sound. There was virtually no money in our work; but he genuinely liked the songs I had written.

So now here we are in a UK studio, 1969. I am perspiring, waving my arms and conducting chorus to chorus, simultaneously playing a Gibson SG guitar with a single P90 bridge pickup. Dave Preston patiently watched the mad conductor, played time and unleashed his fire when the time was right, which gave me great solace.

I was loud. The neighbouring offices could all hear it, and the control room was filled with their office staff playing truant. I was recording—live! I always remember one remark: “Sounds like he’s playing the guitar underwater.” Their presence gave me purpose, consolation that I wasn’t just playing into a dead machine, just to be boxed on an automated assembly line into a ‘product’ destined for a supermarket shelf next to dishwashing liquid.

I had a heartfelt reunion with Dave Preston just over a year ago. He now sings and writes beautiful music. I would be hard pressed to find a gentler soul amongst my acquaintances. He never forgot our work, and still had an acetate of our original recording—from which it is now published. Did I think it would be released all over the world 42 years later? No way.

Chicago label Drag City have offi cially released the album Doug Jerebine Is Jesse Harper on vinyl and digital download to worldwide acclaim, with Mojo, Uncut and Record Collector giving the long-overdue reissue a major thumbs up. New local imprint Imperial have released the album with additional tracks from Doug’s career – he plays a release show at the Kings Arms on Wednesday 14 March to celebrate.

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1AA

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LET’S FACE IT – when you go to most live concerts, you know pretty much what you’re in for. There are few real surprises. But there was a strange sense of anticipation and apprehension at The Powerstation on the night that Roky Erickson, formerly of the pioneering Texas-based band The 13th Floor Elevators, was due to perform. After all, this is a man who reportedly dropped acid over 300 times, was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, was subjected to electro-shock therapy when locked away in a hospital for the criminally insane and then spent a good portion of the 80s and 90s collecting and collating his neighbour’s junk mail.

Now, after a decade of rehabilitation and healing, he’s back making music. So, while some of the crowd were there to pay homage to Roky’s musical contributions, others, no doubt, just wanted to see what would happen once he took the stage. In a nation notorious for its rubbernecking, this show could have rated right up there as a spectacular train wreck.

After local band Shaft turned in an energetic, if overly-loud set, a six-piece band made their way on to the stage, led by a frontman who bore a slight resemblance to Jack White. As it turned out, it was Roky’s son, Jegar, backed by the band that would also accompany his father. It soon became clear the Jegar inherited his dad’s formidable voice, though the audience, in the mood to rock, didn’t respond to Jegar’s quieter side.

Jegar and the band left, and then returned a short time later with Roky taking centre stage. There he was, 64 years old, with long, greying hair and beard, a bit of a gut and a guitar strapped on. The band laid into a Bo Diddley groove to warm things up

while Roky tentatively played along and sang a few, mostly inaudible lyrics.

The audience held its collective breath, before ‘Cold Night For Alligators’ kicked in and Roky was off and running. His voice sounded strong, even if he did look to be a bit bewildered.

Aside from ‘Goodbye Sweet Dreams’, the set focussed on Roky’s prime 70s output – primitive, three-chord rock & roll songs like ‘The

Interpreter’, ‘Bermuda’, ‘Don’t Slander Me’ and the glorious ‘Two-Headed Dog’. The band sounded like they were still rehearsing, but perhaps that’s the result of working with Roky, who looked as if he might go off on some musical tangent at any moment.

Although Roky never spoke to the crowd, he did play a few solos and he wrapped up the hour-long set with a couple of Elevators’ classics, ‘Reverberation’ and ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’.

Fans were expecting an encore, but none was forthcoming. It was an uneven ending to a show that it seemed almost impossible to think took place at all. Who would have thought that they could have seen Roky Erickson performing in Auckland, New Zealand in 2012? The idea is almost as mind-bending as the Elevators’ music.

“In a nation notorious for its rubbernecking, this show could have rated right up there as a spectacular train wreck.”

POWERSTATION, AUCKLANDWEDNESDAY 7 MARCHReview Marty DudaPhotography Jonathan Ganley

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NORTHLANDTHURSDAY 15Sanders Alley Geiling – Bishopswood Boutique Distillery, Kerikeri, 7:30pm, $20I am Giant – Ballroom Billiards, Whangarei, 8pm, $30FRIDAY 16Cry Baby – Hikurangi Hotel, Whangarei, 8:30pm, FreePhil Drane @ Whangarei Folk Club – Kamo Swifts Soccer Club, Whangarei, 7:30pmAbout Time Jazz Trio – Butterbank, Whangarei, 6pm, FreeThe Hewson Project – 35 Degrees South Aquarium Restaurant and Bar, Paihia, 6pm, FreeCobra Khan – The Red Eye, Whangarei, 8pmSATURDAY 17Unknown Peace – Mangawhai Tavern, Mangawhai, 9pm

AUCKLANDTUESDAY 13Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffi ti w/ Guests – Kings Arms, Newton, 8pm, $40That’s Country – Auckland Town Hall, THE EDGE, Auckland CBD, 7:30pm, $67-$75Florries Irish Music Jam Sessions – Florrie McGreals Irish Pub, Takapuna, 7:30pm, FreeWEDNESDAY 14Doug Jerebine Album Release – Kings Arms, Newton, 7pmKaraoke Kate – QF Tavern, Auckland CBD, 9pm, FreeAlan Young at the Bluegrass Club – The Bunker, Devonport, 8pm, $5-$8Wednesdays at Flight lounge ft. Sam Hill & General Lee – Flight Lounge, Auckland CBD, 10pm, FreeNikola Memedovic Jazz Duet – C.A.C. Bar & Restaurant, Mt Eden, 6:30pm, FreeLive Latin and Brazilian Music – The Mexican Cafe, Auckland CBD, 8:30pm, FreePetra Rijnbeek & Paul Voight – Sugar Bar, Newmarket, 7pm, FreeWednesday R&B Jam Night – Flo Bar & Cafe, Newmarket, 9pm, FreeDirty Three – Powerstation, Eden Terrace, 8pmEndless Boogie – The Lucha Lounge, Newmarket, 7pm, $10THURSDAY 15The Cranberries – The Trusts Stadium Arena, Henderson, 7:30pmReal Estate – Kings Arms, Newton, 8pmGerry Rooderkerk Alive & Acoustic – The Fiddler Irish Bar, Auckland CBD, 10pm, FreeThursday Night Live – The Mad Crept – 1885 Britomart, Auckland CBD, 9pm, FreeFranko – QF Tavern, Auckland CBD, 10pm, FreeGranduo – Florrie McGreals Irish Pub, Takapuna, 9:30pm, FreeDJ HYPE – 4:20, Newton, 9pm, $152Five9 Jazz Trio – 1885 Basement, Auckland CBD, 10pm, FreePetra Rijnbeek & Paul Voight – The Lumsden, Newmarket, 6:30pm, FreeGreg Tell – Auckland Fish Market, Auckland CBD, 5pm, FreeFRIDAY 16The Backyard ft. Rodney Fisher (Goodshirt) – Okra Espresso Lounge & Gallery, Sandringham, 7pm, $15Kora w/ Soljah & DJ Infamy – Presented by AuSM & ZM – Vesbar, Auckland CBD, 7pm, $5-$30

Taylor Swift – Vector Arena, Auckland CBD, 7:30pmI Am Giant – Let It Go Summer Tour – Kings Arms, Newton, 8pm, $32.85Jason – The Fiddler Irish Bar, Auckland CBD, 11pm, FreeDiary Flat Live Blues Club Night / Jam – Dairy Flat Community Hall, Dairy Flat, 8pm, $2Brett Polley – De Post, Mt Eden, 8:30pm, FreeDouble Vision – GBS Bar & Restaurant @ The Prospect, Howick, 8:30pm, FreeJason Smith – QF Tavern, Auckland CBD, 9pm, FreeMal McCallum – Moretons Bar and Restaurant, St Heliers, 8pm, FreeDJ Chris Cox & Percussionist Partido, DJ Leza Lee – The Deck, Auckland CBD, 8pm, FreeFridays at Trench Bar – Trench Bar, Auckland CBD, 10pm, FreeFriday Night Salsa – Latin Dance Studios Ltd (Latinissimo), Glenfi eld, 8:30pm, $5Contagious – Cock & Bull, Ellerslie, 9pm, FreeSATURDAY 17Jameson Global Party ft. Zowie and Clap Clap Riot – The Britomart Country Club, Auckland CBD, 2pm, $25Taylor Swift – Vector Arena, Auckland CBD, 7:30pmSick Disco presents MayaVanya, Defcon-1, Randomplay & More – Cassette Number Nine, Auckland CBD, 7pm, $10Sudha Ragunathan: Carnatic Music Concert – Raye Freedman Arts Centre, Epsom, 6:30pm, $10-$15Eilen Jewell – Powerstation, Eden Terrace, 8pmHeart Attack Alley Fundraiser Party – Wine Cellar, Newton, 8pmRegrooved: St Patrick’s Day/Local Edition – Rakinos, Auckland CBD, 9pm, $10AM Duo – Blacksalt Bar & Eatery, New Lynn, 8pm, FreeGoody 2 Shoes & Pat 4 President – QF Tavern, Auckland CBD, 9pm, FreeMitch French – De Post, Mt Eden, 8:30pm, FreeThe VHF – Fibber McPhee’s Irish Bar, Botany Downs, 7pm, FreeSt Patrick’s Day – The Claddagh, Newmarket, 7am, FreeSt Patrick’s Day Hurstmere Hooley – Florrie McGreals Irish Pub, Takapuna, 9am, FreeSt Patricks Day Music & Dance Festival – The Clare Inn, Mt Eden, 11pm, FreeDJ Thane Kirby & Guitarist Adam Stevenson, DJ Linley Latu – The Deck, Auckland CBD, 8pm, FreeDJ Kase, Aotea-Raw, Skinnybeast & Shadowmovement – Khuja Lounge, Auckland CBD, 9pmHabana Noches – Tropical Flavour – QF Tavern, Auckland CBD, 9pm, FreeContagious – Cock & Bull, Ellerslie, 9pm, FreeIn The Summertime – Alex Bright – The PumpHouse Theatre, Takapuna, 7pm, $10-$15Mark Armstrong Acoustic – De Fontein, Mission Bay, 8:30pm, FreeJason Mohi – Malt Bar, Grey Lynn, 8pm, FreeAfter Midnight – Papatoetoe RSA, Papatoetoe, 6:30pm, $5Bloody Souls, Feral Breed, Mean Girls, Sex Pest plus More – UFO Live Music Venue, New Lynn, 8pmCobra Khan – The Lucha Lounge, Newmarket, 9pm, $12Dreamcatcher – 4:20, Newton, 10pm

SUNDAY 18St Vincent NZ Tour – Kings Arms, Newton, 8pm, $52Taylor Swift – Vector Arena, Auckland CBD, 7:30pmShae Snell – The Fiddler Irish Bar, Auckland CBD, 6pm, FreeWhite Rabbit Black Monkey & Yasamin Al-Tiay: AFOE – Uxbridge Creative Centre, Howick, 6:30pm, FreeA Summer of Free Music in the Market – Artisan Wines, Oratia, 1pm, FreeBlues in The Boat House – The Flamming Mudcats – The Riverhead, Riverhead, 2pm, FreeGranduo – Goode Brothers, Botany Downs, 3pm, FreeJamesRAy’s Acoustic Country Sunday – Bar Africa, North Harbour, 12pm, FreeJamesRAy’s Encore Acoustic Country Sunday – Bar Africa, Highland Park, 5:30pm, FreeMusic in Parks 2012 – The Culture Garden – Auckland Domain Wintergardens, Parnell, 6pm, FreeSandpaper Tango – Corelli’s Cafe, Devonport, 6pm, FreeChris Prowse – The Bunker, Devonport, 8pm, $15Florries Irish Music Jam Sessions – Florrie McGreals Irish Pub, Takapuna, 5:30pm, FreePortable Panic at the Thisty Dog Folk Club – The Thirsty Dog, Newton, 3pmDJ Nyntee & Saxophonist Lewis McCallum – The Deck, Auckland CBD, 5pm, FreeAuckland Vintage Jazz Society – Takapuna Boating Club, Takapuna, 7pm, $10-$15Chicane Duo – Bill Fish Cafe, St Marys Bay, 1pmCoopers Creek Summer Sunday Jazz – Coopers Creek Vineyard, Huapai, 1pm, FreeMaria O’Flaherty & Ben Fernandez Quintet – Coopers Creek Vineyard, Huapai, 1pmMusic in Parks 2012 – Jazz at the Rotunda – Auckland Domain Band Rotunda, Parnell, 2pm, FreeSunday Jazz, Rock, Reggae Session – Shooters Saloon, Kingsland, 2pm, FreeRavin World Tour – The Clare Inn, Mt Eden, 4pm, FreeMONDAY 19Brenda Liddiard – The Bunker, Devonport, 8pm, $3-$5Traditional Irish Music Session – The Clare Inn, Mt Eden, 7pm, FreeViva Jazz Quartet – The Windsor Castle, Parnell, 6pm, Free

THE COROMANDELSATURDAY 17The Lazyboyz Irish Rock show – Waihi Memorial RSA, Waihi, 8pm, FreeSt Patrick’s Day Hooley – Blacksmith Bar, Whitianga, 4pm, Free

HAWKE’S BAY / GISBORNEWEDNESDAY 14Joy Adams – Gisborne RSA, Gisborne, 7:30pm, $10FRIDAY 16Live@5 – Hawke’s Bay Opera House, Hastings, 5pm, FreeSUNDAY 18Te Awanga Estate Sunday Sessions – Te Awanga Estate, Hastings, 12pm, $5

WAIKATOTUESDAY 13Endless Boogie (NYC, USA) + X-Ray Fiends – Static Bar, Hamilton, 8pm, $10WEDNESDAY 14That’s Country – Founders Theatre, Hamilton, 7:30pm, $75THURSDAY 15Rocky Rhodes – Ngaruawahia RSA, Ngaruawahia, 7:30pm, FreeFRIDAY 16Thunderdykes, The Beggars’ Way + Viking Weed – Static Bar, Hamilton, 9pm, Free

BAY OF PLENTYTUESDAY 13Joy Adams – Tauranga RSA, Tauranga, 1:30pm, $5THURSDAY 15That’s Country – Baycourt Community and Arts Centre, Tauranga, 7:30pm, $75FRIDAY 16Rocky Horror Retro Revue – The Blue Baths, Rotorua, 7pm, $45-$110That’s Country – Civic Theatre, Rotorua, 7:30pm, $67-$90Katikati Folk Club, David Shanhun and Simon Snaize – Katikati Bowling Club, Katikati, 7:30pmSATURDAY 17Saint Patricks Day – Waihi Beach Hotel, Waihi Beach, 8pm, FreeMONDAY 19Jimmy & Perry – The Pheasant Plucker, Rotorua, 7pm, Free

TARANAKIWEDNESDAY 14Sounds Aotearoa Showcase Sessions – Matinee, New Plymouth, 7pm, $30-$50THURSDAY 15Sounds Aotearoa Showcase Sessions – Matinee, New Plymouth, 7pm, $30-$50FRIDAY 16WOMAD 2012 – TSB Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth, 6pm, $288SATURDAY 17WOMAD 2012 – TSB Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth, 12pm, $288That’s Country – TSB Theatre – TSB Showplace, New Plymouth, 7:30pm, $67-$90SUNDAY 18WOMAD 2012 – TSB Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth, 12pm, $288

MANAWATU / WHANGANUIFRIDAY 16These Four Walls and Decortica – The Royal, Palmerston North, 8pm, $14-$15SATURDAY 17House of Shem, Native Sons & Chad Chambers – The Owhango Hotel, Taumarunui, 7pm, $25Midnight Switch Rocks St Paddy’s – The Royal, Palmerston North, 9pm, Free

WELLINGTON REGIONTUESDAY 13James Hill – NZIAF – PATAKA Museum of Arts and Cultures, Porirua – Mana, 8pm, $15-$36Live Music – The Library, 5pm, FreeWEDNESDAY 14The Eversons – San Francisco Bath

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House, 8pm, FreeJames Hill – NZIAF – TelstraClear Festival Club, 7:30pm, $48-$440THURSDAY 15Nick Granville Band – Hotel Bristol, 8:30pm, FreeJames Hill – NZIAF – TelstraClear Festival Club, 7:30pm, $48-$440Motor City Family Funk – Mighty Mighty, 9pm, $10FRIDAY 16Real Estate – San Francisco Bath House, 8pmIn Like Flynn – Molly Malones, 9pmBass Frontiers 13th Birthday ft. DJ Hype (Playaz UK) – Sandwiches, 11pm, $30DJ Hype (Playaz) – Sandwiches, 11pm, $30Tiki Taane – New Zealand International Arts Festival – TelstraClear Festival Club, 7:30pm, $48-$440Charlotte Johansen, Lizard Folk and Finn Johansson – Meow, 8pmNZSM Friday Lunchtime Concert: Norman Meehan – NZSM Concert Hall, 12pm, FreeSATURDAY 17These Four Walls and Decortica – Bar Medusa, 8pm, $14-$15Atomic – San Francisco Bath House, 9pm, $10Sherpa Album Release – Mighty Mighty, 8pmDarren Watson & The Real Deal Blues Band – The Lido Cafe, 8:30pm, FreeIn Like Flynn – Molly Malones, 6pmTiki Taane – New Zealand International Arts Festival – TelstraClear Festival Club, 10:15pm, $48-$440SUNDAY 18Mulled Wine – Michael Endres Performs Schumann – Paekakariki Memorial Hall, Paekakariki, 2:30pm, $20The Boptet – The Lido Cafe, 7pm, FreeThe Sunday Jazz Club – Public Bar & Eatery, 7:30pm, FreeMONDAY 19St Vincent NZ Tour – San Francisco Bath House, 8pm, $52

NELSON / TASMANTHURSDAY 15Oleh & Liam O’Connell – Conscious Loops Tour – The Commercial Hotel, Nelson Lakes, 9pm, FreeFRIDAY 16Oleh & Liam O’Connell – Conscious Loops Tour – Tap Ale House & Restaurant, Waimea, 9pm, FreeBT Groove – Sprig And Fern, Nelson, 8:30pm, FreeSATURDAY 17St Patrick’s w/ The Whisky Priest – Liquid NZ Bar, Nelson, 9pm, FreeSUNDAY 18Fiona Pears – Mussel Inn, Golden Bay, 8pm, $25

MARLBOROUGHFRIDAY 16Motor City Family Funk – Le Cafe, Marlborough Sounds, 8pm, $12SATURDAY 17Theiving Gypsy B*st*ard – Lennys on Main Irish Pub and Cafe, Marlborough Sounds, 7pm, FreeSUNDAY 18Oleh & Liam O’Connell – Conscious Loops Tour – Le Cafe, Marlborough Sounds, 9pm, Free

WEST COASTTUESDAY 13Fiona Pears – Donovan’s Store, Franz Josef, 7:30pm, $25THURSDAY 15Fiona Pears – Regent Theatre, Hokitika, 8pm, $25SUNDAY 18The ABBA Show – NBS Theatre, Westport, 8pm, $25-$49

CANTERBURYTHURSDAY 15The Black Velvet Band – Becks Southern Alehouse, 8pm, FreeSalsa On Thursdays – Salsa Latina Dance Studio, 8:45pm, FreeFRIDAY 16$noregazZzm, Fauxhound + WAOTS – darkroom, 9pm, FreeFrench for Rabbits Lunchtime Concert – City Mall, 12pm, FreeTealight Acoustics – Phillipstown Youth Centre, 8:30pm, $5-$10D’sendantz – Becks Southern Alehouse, 9pm, FreeSmashbox – Christchurch Casino, 11pm, FreeSATURDAY 17French for Rabbits – Claimed by the Sea Tour – darkroom, 8pm, FreeBassfreaks present DJ Hype & The Upbeats – The Colombo, 7pm, $25St Patricks Day Party – Pierside Cafe and Bar, 8:30pm, FreeSign of the Firebird – St Patricks Day Party – Becks Southern Alehouse, 8pm, FreeUndercover – Christchurch Casino, 11pm, Free

OTAGOFRIDAY 16Alizarin Lizard – The Weekend Went Without You Album Tour – ReFuel Bar, Dunedin, 9pmFrench for Rabbits – Claimed by the Sea Tour – Harbour St Theatrette, Oamaru, 8pm, $10SATURDAY 17Delaney Davidson – Orokonui Ecosanctuary, Dunedin, 5:30pm, $15Swingtime w/ King Leo – Westpac Mayfair Theatre, Dunedin, 8pm, $10-$30Jazz in the Cathedral – St Paul’s Cathedral, Dunedin, 6pm, $13-$15Real Estate – ReFuel Bar, Dunedin, 8pmSUNDAY 18Anika Moa – Summer Playground Series – The Winehouse, Gibbston, 3pm, $45Choral Eucharist (Jazz Mass) – St Paul’s Cathedral, Dunedin, 10am, Free

SOUTHLANDSATURDAY 17Alizarin Lizard – The Weekend Went Without You Album Tour – Louie’s Bar, Invercargill, 9pmSUNDAY 18Stephen Wilcox – Longford Tavern & Function Centre, Gore, 1pm

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

SOLD OUT

Page 26: VOLUME #026

Roky Erickson fi nally made it to Auckland with Shaft offering a sonic set to open … Ruban Nielson’s Unknown Mortal Orchestra may be looking for new management … Wembley headliner Frank Turner returns with his band The Sleeping Souls on May 15 at the Kings Arms, with support from The Broadsides. Sounding like a mix between Billy Bragg and Joe Strummer you don’t want to miss this punk rock poet on his worldwide ascent – tickets from undertheradar.co.nz and Real Groovy … US metallers August Burns Red play April 14 at the Kings Arms… Beach Pigs & Rackets are working on a nationwide tour for May – will they top the last gigantic Rackets effort??... seems to be discontent with actual ‘opinion’ in Volume – one band were recently dismayed at the tone in which they were described…. Eve’s Pantry’s nipple cakes seem to get better and better.

Rest In Peace to The Frederick Street Sound And Light Exploration Society, which during its tenure of service was a welcome refugee for the rehearsal, recording and performance of diffi cult and fringe music in the Wellington region… Homebrew’s recent Wellington show at San Francisco Bath House was a sell-out… Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffi ti play Bar Bodega on Wednesday night, and Real Estate play San Francisco Bath House on Friday, making it a good week for fans of new American indie rock… St Vincent aka the singer Simon Sweetman recently described as his worst interview ever, and whom everyone else loves, plays at San Francisco Bath House on Monday the 19th of

March. Essential listening… Ghost Wave and Beach Pigs play Mighty Mighty on Saturday the 24th of March, fans of fuzzy, melodic rock apply here. And on the 28th of March, Japanese synth rockers Thatta hit Mighty Mighty as well. Good times and they always got swappacrate beers and cask wine on deck… QBT Quesadillas Burritos and Tacos has divided and relocated to two new CBD locations, on the corner of Brandon and Featherston Street, and on the waterfront next to Wagamamas. Hit them up for the best Mexican this side of Viva Mexico… Wellington beatboxing legend King Homeboy is currently fundraising to head to the 2012 World Beat Boxing Championships in Berlin. Look out for fundraising gigs and a forthcoming PledgeMe.co.nz campaign… Fresh from extensive overseas touring, The Upbeats are currently recording towards an as yet untitled new studio album. Drum and Bass fans hold tight… The 2012 Newtown Festival was life-affi rming, musical highlights included D:UNK, Delaney Davidson, Heart Attack Alley, Silva MC and The Nudge… You can stream Jetsam Isles’ album Physical Copy free at www.jetsamisles.bandcamp.com/ – we rated it highly last issue.

The Eastern played two sellout gigs at Lyttelton’s Top Club on the release of Hope and Wire,their double album recorded in a house in Darlington.They now are set to tour extensively through NZ and Australia over the rest of the year… The Bedford had a successful launch with Roots Manuva and this can only bode well for the venue’s future. Great to be getting some big gigs back… The Brewery are opening a

new restaurant/venue in Madras St in about 6 weeks… Von Voin Strum have received NZOA video funding and will use it to feature the title track off their new EP, Shiver Roses, produced by Andrew Buckton. EP will be released in April…The Heart Strings guitar auction raised $110,000 for the Christchurch arts community. An awesome result and mucho thanks to all involved… Ipswich and Psych Tigers have signed to Muzai Records. Another band getting good press, Bits and Pieces, have released their new album, Welcome to Mediocrity, via bandcamp…The Greyhounds have fi nally begun to take shape now that Hamish (th’ Captain) Thorpe has returned from his adventures at sea. The bluegrass-tinged band band also features Marlon and Ben from The Unfaithful Ways and Ainta from Devilish Mary. Th’ Captain has also joined Runaround Sue who are close to laying their sound on the public at large, starting with the opening of the Wunderbar on March 30. Marlon has also just fi nished recording 24 songs with Delaney Davidson for an upcoming double album. Which begs the question: we seeing the comeback of the “double” album, Canterbury-style?

Two Cartoons’ national tour has been announced with dates from Invercargill to Auckland via Timaru and others... New venue The National is taking bookings but will be closed for a couple of weeks due to illness – Get well soon Bill!... Feastock lineup looking heavy and now features out-of-town acts Beastwars, Rhythmonyx and Organikismnes… Delgirl went down a treat in Chch with three sold-out shows… TLA Beef EP release went off.

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EILEN JEWELLFriday 16 March – Bodega, WellingtonSaturday 17 March – The Powerstation, Auckland

ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFITTI Tuesday 13 March – Kings Arms, AucklandWednesday 14 March – Bodega, Wellington

DIRTY THREEWednesday 14 March – The Powerstation, Auckland

REAL ESTATEThursday 15 March – Kings Arms, Auckland Friday 16 March – San Francisco Bath House, Wellington Saturday 17 March – ReFuel, Dunedin

ST VINCENTSunday 18 March – Kings Arms, AucklandMonday 19 March – San Francisco Bath House, Wellington

MARK LANEGAN BANDWednesday 18 April – The Powerstation, Auckland

JOE SATRIANI, STEVE VAI AND STEVE LUKATHER – G3 JOE SATRIANI, STEVE VAI AND STEVE LUKATHER – G3 JOE SATRIANI, STEVE VAI Saturday 24 March – Michael Fowler Centre, WellingtonSunday 25 March – Logan Campbell Centre, Auckland

BORISTuesday 27 March – Bodega, WellingtonWednesday 28 March – Kings Arms, Auckland

ELBOWWednesday 28/Thursday 29 March – The Powerstation, Auckland

NICK LOWE Saturday 31 March – The Powerstation, Auckland

STEVE EARLE Wednesday 11 April – Kings Arms, Auckland Thursday 12 April – Bodega, Wellington

THE SONICSWednesday 18 April – Kings Arms, Auckland

JOHN COOPER CLARKEWednesday 21 March – Dunedin Fringe Festival Thursday 22 March – Kings Arms, Auckland Friday 23 March – Bodega, Wellington Saturday 24 March – Marchfest, Nelson

PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT PLAYING CLOSER – A JOY CLOSER – A JOY CLOSERDIVISION CELEBRATIONWednesday 18/Thursday 19 April – Bodega, Wellington Friday 20 April – Studio, Auckland

JUSTIN TOWNES EARLEThursday 19 April – Dux Live, Christchurch Friday 20 April – Bar Bodega, Wellington Satuday 21 April – Kings Arms, Auckland Sunday 22 April – Sawmill Café, Leigh

KRS-ONEFriday 20 April – Town Hall, Wellington Saturday 21 April – The Cloud, Auckland

THE 5.6.7.8’SFriday 27 April – Kings Arms, AucklandSaturday 28 April – Bodega, Wellington

WAVVESThursday 3 May – Kings Arms, Auckland

LADY GAGAThursday 7/Friday 8/Sunday 10 June – Vector Arena, Auckland

WOODEN SHJIPSSunday 1 April – Kings Arms, AucklandMonday 2 April – Bodega, Wellington

HENRY ROLLINSWednesday 11 April – Clarence St Theatre, Hamilton Thursday 12 April – Dux Live, Christchurch Friday 13 April – The Opera House, Wellington Saturday 14 April – SkyCity Theatre, Auckland

KAISER CHIEFSThursday 10 May –The Powerstation, Auckland

ALABAMA 3Thursday 22 March – The Powerstation, Auckland CITY AND COLOUR

Sunday 29 April – Town Hall, AucklandMARCHFEST CRAFT BEER AND MUSIC FESTIVALAlabama 3, John Cooper Clarke, TheDrab Doo-Riffs, The Immigrants and The Ukes of Hazard.Saturday 24 March – Founders Mark, Nelson

LUCINDA WILLIAMSTuesday 10 April – Town Hall, AucklandWednesday 11 April – St James Theatre, Wellington

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Golden Awesome

MUSIC, FOOD AND most importantly, no liquor bans. Despite an unusual location change this year, the gods of free musical goodness at bFM have delivered once again.

The bFM Summer Series Festival has become a traditional end to Orientation week for Auckland students (and those who remain students at heart). This time, the annual event moved away from its traditional Albert Park venue to the buzzing Silo Park in Wynyard Quarter.

Many concert-goers, myself included, had never been to Silo Park. This mythical land of grass, sea and large concrete cylinders luckily turned out to be only a five-minute walk from the ferry terminal. As an avid Albert Park enthusiast I was sceptical about the venue change but my fears were unfounded. The atmosphere and setting next to the sea was unique and compelling. While Silo Park was missing a few old comforts of the former venue – trees, extensive grass, homeless people – it had a much more professional feel.

Despite the alcoholic nature of the event (it remained a downlow ‘BYO’ occasion) and the cheap wine bottles turning up all over the place, the day was very peaceful. The large but relaxed security presence resulted in a controlled and enjoyable environment. This meant that, for better or worse, toddlers and fourteen year old girls could frolic around the chequered-shirt hipsters without any fear.

Dunedin boys Die! Die! Die! and Auckland garage-rockers The Checks

were the big draw cards in the line-up and provided a great show. Die! Die! Die’s energy and gritty performance strongly reflected their electric sound. Their set was downright sexy and the band’s large fanbase only seems to grow with their live sets.

At the end of the day The Checks turned out for their many sunburnt fans. Performing their new songs, the band showed that they are not afraid to progress and venture into new territory. The songs from their new album, Deadly Summer Sway, had funky undertones that brought a jazzy vibe into their performance. Old favourites

such as “Ballroom Baby” and “What You Heard” were also well-received by those familiar with the band. These guys are still amazing to watch live – Ed Knowles’ vocal range is as impressive as his raw energy, leaping all over the stage and grabbing onto the bFM’s marquee’s tent railings. This remains a band that can charm anyone.

But for me the highlight of the day lay in the first act, Princess Chelsea. This is a self-titled project by former Brunettes’ member Chelsea Nikkel, with musical support by her friends. In what can only be described as the result of a Disney princess’s reproduction with a spaced-out zombie, her music is like a dreamy yet disturbing lullaby. Touches of xylophone and keyboard melodies interweave throughout songs like “Cigarette Duet” and “Ice Reign”. It is a simplistic style, but works effectively for Nikkel. The only problem was the due to the midday time-slot not enough people saw the performance. Here’s hoping for a later start next year for the hungover crowds.

“For better or worse, toddlers and fourteen year old girls could frolic around the chequered-shirt hipsters without any fear.”

SILO PARK, AUCKLANDSATURDAY 10 MARCHReview Jess McAllenPhotography Rosabel Tan

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Golden Awesome

Street Chant

Street Chant Die! Die! Die!

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Page 31: VOLUME #026
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