I noted on Friday that the week marked by the presentation of Rose Renton's medical cannabis petition to Parliament and the passing of Helen Kelly, the woman who changed the debate, would be capped with an small, significant announcement about a medical cannabis product. That happened.
Q+A's Ryan Boswell got the exclusive. Or, rather, was supposed to: the Herald on Sunday ran the story early. You can can see it in the third part of today's show.
What has happened is that a cannabis tincture from the Canadian company Tilray (not a pill, as stated on Q+A) has been approved under section 3 of the Ministry of Health guidelines for approving cannabis-based products. That is, as a non-pharmaceutical grade product. That's the category under which the Bloom Farms product for which Helen Kelly's doctor sought approval but was denied. [Note: The minister's office takes issue with the word "declined". See the update at the end of this post.]
This is a different kind of product made by a different kind of company. Tilray operates under Canadian laws, rather than the loosey-goosey Calfornian medical marijuana system. It was able to meet the basic test of a product assay.
Indeed, the people at Medical Cannabis Awareness NZ, who helped with the application, applied under the second section of the guidelines, for "pharmaceutical grade cannabis-based products that do not have consent for distribution in New Zealand". I gather it came fairly close to meeting that standard. (You can read the join MCANZ-Tilray press release here.)
But the thing is, it's been approved. If the next application is in order, that should be approved too. Should.
There's another difference. The other two ministerial approvals for non-pharma grade products have been one for Alex Renton, Rose's son, who suffered with and eventually died of a condition of constant seizures, and one for a young man with Tourettes, for whom Aseco calm spray was approved. The young man in the second case would have qualified for Sativex, the only approved pharma grade product in New Zealand, but the Acesco product was relatively easy to approve, because it contained only neglible levels of THC and was therefore less psychoactive. (On the letter of the law, a CBD-only preparation might even have been able to be sold off the shelf, as it is in the UK – although that status will be ended by the UK regulator's recent acceptance of CDB as a viable medicine.)
The situation with the Tilray product is that it's functionally equivalent to Sativex, in that it contains equal quantities of THC and CBD – it's just way cheaper. Until such time as Pharmac funds a cannabis-based medicine, that means a hell of a lot to Huhana Hickey, the multiple sclerosis patient in whose name the application was made. I know Huhana and I'm very happy for her.
As she explains in the Q+A story, Huhana wasn't willing to freestyle it and just source some pot for her needs. Partly because she didn't want to break the law to have a medicine, but also because she wants to be assured of what she's taking, which is important when you have multiple health issues related to your primary illness. Retail cannabis doesn't have a warranted 50-50 ratio of THC and CBD, the two main cannabinoids – it has several (or many) times more of the former than the latter.
That might actually be an advantage if you wanted cannabis for, say, palliative care, but a high CBD content seems to be important for nerve pain. There's a pretty strong case for being able to say what a medicine contains, basically. That why you'll find many doctors who do not want to be put in the position of prescribing whole cannabis.
And yet, I've spoken to people who do experience symptom relief from raw cannabis – in one case, after trying every approved treatment for complex regional pain syndrome and becoming near-suicidal with it. They should be able to talk to their doctors about it – and they should not have to fear prosecution (neither should people who produce or prepare cannabis for them). The best thing that could happen for medical cannabis in this sense is for the law on cannabis itself to change. That would solve most of the problems.
But the present government has closed its ears to any talk of law reform – and, to be honest, the major party of Opposition isn't exactly champing at the bit either. So progress for now is likely to be a matter of finding paths within the law. In this context, both Rose Renton's petition and MCANZ's incremental win inside the system matter a lot.
Update: I received the follow message from Mr Dunne's media advisor, Rob Eaddy:
Kelly’s doctor was not “denied”, rather the opposite occurred - Mr Dunne asked the Ministry to actively follow up with him to obtain additional information on his somewhat loose application.
He subsequently decided to withdraw the application for Bloom Farms and instead proposed to prescribe Sativex when the product was brought to his attention.
Ms Kelly subsequently decided not to accept her oncologist’s recommendation for Sativex.
It is misleading and a little inflammatory to suggest, particularly given the recent death of Ms Kelly, that she was denied access by the Minister.
I'm not sure there is really a significant practical difference between "not granted pending further information to satisfy the guidelines for ministerial approval" and "declined under the guidelines", but yes, this was the sequence of events and the application was not formally declined. Perhaps we could say the application "failed". In my view, the Bloom Farms product was unlikely to ever be approved if the manufacturers did not supply sufficient information. But as I explained at the time, Dr Falkov's application also fell short of other guidelines (including that the patient be hospitalised when treatment was initiated) that were not reasonable or appropriate.
If music is important in your life, you probably have a special record. You may have more than one, especially if you're a DJ. BaseFM asked its considerable fleet of DJs to choose just one, write about why it mattered and lend out the sleeve for its Cover Story exhibition for Artweek Auckland.
I went along to the opening on Wednesday night and, perhaps partly because so many of the people were in the room, I found it really quite moving. A common theme in the stories was family: Dad's records, Mum's records, just the records that were in the house long ago.
One of those stood out for me. OoGuN from Drunk Elephant Sound chose Fela Kuti's International Thief Thief.
He wrote about growing up in Nigeria and hearing it as the first record where Fela used his music as "an alternative news channel" and about it being part of his late father's massive record collection and about not realising until years later when he bought his own copy in London that a member of his extended family actually played on the record.
The record has a different resonance for me.
Nicole King was my first real girlfriend, when I was 17. She was two years younger than me in age and 10 years older in sophistication. Her parents, Bruce and Adele, who both taught at the University of Canterbury, were the first New York bohemians I ever met. They were probably the only ones in Canterbury at the time. It seemed so exotic that Bruce would still be in his robe on a Saturday afternoon and that Adele would smoke coloured Sobranie cigarettes.
They treated me, as they did their daughter, as someone with whom cultural matters could be discussed. They took us to see Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls (Bruce, in a very bohemian fashion, decided to go for a walk during the movie). I'd go around for dinner and they'd serve each part as a separate course. They were astonished but grateful when, as a well-brought-up boy, I would spring up and do the dishes. They introduced me to sashimi, wasabi and sambal, in 1980.
And Nicole introduced me to that record. She explained that it was significant and that the title was a play on the name of the telecommunications multinational I.T.T. And she played it, the first afrobeat record I'd ever heard, and it blew my mind.
We broke up but stayed in touch, even after she went to university (Brown) in America and subsequently settled in Paris. I called her one day from Gare Lyon as a surprise and she told me off for not giving her notice – she and her boyfriend were just off to stay at a millionaire's place in Italy. I stayed in their apartment and had a romantic few days visting Jim Morrison's and Oscar Wilde's graves at Père Lachaise, drinking wine, reading Nicole's back issues of the New Yorker (for the first time!) and making copious notes.
A year or two later – and 10 years since she played me that Fela record – Bill Direen, a mutual friend, called me in London to share the terrible news that Nicole had died. She had been trapped in a fire in their apartment block – there had been negligence in the part of the landlord. She was buried at Père Lachaise.
Seeing that cover this week brought back all those things. Records can do that.
Cover Story runs until November 5 at Studio One, Room 10, 1 Ponsonby Road.
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I've previously mentioned the new music venue (that seems a more appropriate word than "bar") REC down the bottom of town at 38 Customs Street – and last night I had the unexpected privilege of being the first act to play there, at the launch event.
About half the set was before the time on the invites, so it was mostly me playing records for the barmen (I do wish I'd got their dance routine to The Mary Jane Girls on video), which was cool. But as the room filled up and I nudged up the volume, I was able to confirm that for once, a new venue boasting a cracking sound system really does have a cracking sound system. I'm not much of a DJ really, but damn the tunes sounded good. I'm almost surprised GeoNet didn't have a word about the filthy great Public Enemy break in Madonna's 'Justify My Love'.
It's an excellent room too: good sightlines, lots of wood and exposed original oak rafters in the ceiling that create a built-in audio baffle. The first public show is tonight and features Cut Off Your Hands and Yukon Era. Scuba Diva, Puple Pilgrims and Eyes No Eyes play tomorrow night and there's a record fair at Recreation Records, the venue's store, at 10am on Sunday.
Connor Nestor and Samuel Harmony promised a music-centric space before REC opened. I really think that's what they've delivered. Bravo.
At Audioculture, Nick Bollinger opens his Alastair Riddell profile with – what else – that 1974 New Faces appearance by Space Waltz. I was a 12 year-old fan and 'Out on the Street' was the first record I ever bought with my own money.
Helen Kelly didn't take her medical cannabis before we came to see her last Friday.
She explained that she wanted to be articulate for the interview she was doing for a Radio New Zealand series I'm making. I can only guess that came at some cost in pain, and the anxiety she regarded as one of the more irksome side-effects of her cancer.
She was focused, good-humoured and thoughtful throughout the interview and then, with as much joy as relief, summoned some of the preparations she had been given to help her through: grassy white chocolate made from cannabutter, a leafy tea, a lovely-smelling cannabis balm that she invited us to rub on our sore bits.
I didn't know Helen well, but I've spoken to her quite a few times in recent years. She became CTU President not long before Media7 launched in 2008 and after I had a crack on the show at something she'd said, she suggested she come on the following week. She was not only impressive, but relaxed and fun.
A few months ago, she was a panelist at a law reform meeting I chaired. I don't think I've ever run an event with someone so aware of what was happening. She clocked my face when one speaker was going on a bit long and quietly asked me if I wanted her to pass him a note (she did). When I was struggling a little with a commenter from the floor (this happens at cannabis events), she quietly indicated I should give myself a break and move on. I thought at the time it was indicative of a strong sense of empathy.
That sense of empathy informed her final campaign: for medical cannabis reform. Having discovered that marijuana eased the symptoms of the ravage beginning in her body, she could simply have quietly taken it. But she decided to talk. And then, even as her time was being cruelly shortened, she offered that time to the people who contacted her to tell her their stories. She listened.
That was what the interview was about. It's not due to air until next month, although it seems that you'll hear some later today. I think my final question was as to whether, as a lifelong organiser, she felt some frustration with the sometime lack of organisation in the reform lobby. She did. She would have liked to see more unity of purpose. And perhaps that's what fractious reformers can take away: that although they may have different goals and different ways of reaching them, even different ideas of what a win looks like, they are all on the same side.
Although she would not have wished it, Helen died in an auspicious week for that one last campaign. Rose Renton's petition was presented to Parliament on Wednesday; the characters who once had a smoke-up outside the building were invited in by MPs. And I understand that this weekend, there will be a small, incremental but important announcement about a medical cannabis product. These two incremental wins are wins for all.
We did the interview at Helen's house in Mt Victoria,with its magnificent view of Wellington and its foreshore. She had been in hospice, but petitioned to come home, where three lovely women, her friends, were caring for her, and where her stately cat was keeping the seat warm.
I was so focused on the interview last Friday that I didn't realise her friends were listening intently, hovering at the door. They had been understandably protective of her. But when we wrapped, they stood there and applauded. As might we all.
Arohanui, Helen Kelly. Being with you last week was a pleasure and a very great privilege.
Most of this somewhat delayed music post is the following interview Alexander Bisley conducted with Shayne Carter about his new album, Offsider, and life and music in general. I'm very grateful to Alexander for the work – RB.
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Dimmer’s There My Dear, You’ve Got to Hear the Music, and I Believe You Are a Star is one of the 2000s’ great, formative Kiwi music trifectas.
With Dimmer, Shayne P Carter built on his Straitjacket legacy. Like Dunedin Sound classics such as ‘Down in Splendour’, Dimmer songs including ‘Don’t Even See Me’, ‘Getting What You Give’, and ‘Case’ still resonate. Frank and personal, both incendiary and reflective, Carter’s music has soul.
In 2016 Carter continues to push himself, with new album Offsider, influenced by classical pianists. He’s performing nationwide this month with Don McGlashan. Carter is a thoughtful, engaged interviewee. We talked humour, stalking, and WINZ.
“A very funny guy. Shayne’s got a very dry sense of humour, comes up with some hilarious things,” Mu told me, smiling insouciantly. How important is humour to survive in the Kiwi music industry?
Humour is important for survival fullstop wouldn’t you say? If you didn't laugh you'd cry/ comedy is tragedy etc. It's a great comfort, a relief, and, probably, a defense. Buckle up where you can man! All my favourite comedians were/are generally troubled people. Funny that. I come from a family with an excellent absurdist sense of humour.
In my modest acquaintance with Chris Knox, he was a generous man. What did you learn from Chris? And how was it working as his caregiver after his stroke?
I've always respected Chris for being unafraid in what can be such a straitlaced, square society. He was inspirational like that. I love him and his whanau. I was his primary caregiver for two years after his stroke. It was good to be able to give for/to a friend. I thought that was a valuable life experience. But to be honest it was pretty tough too.
I loved experiencing There My Dear, You’ve Got to Hear the Music, and I Believe You Are a Star live. Songs including ‘Don’t Even See Me’, ‘Getting What You Give’, and ‘Case’ still resonate. Any Dimmer songs moving you this month? What dimension does performing live bring?
Well cheers. I like ‘Case’ too. Its subtlety. I played a little house party a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed ‘What’s A Few Tears To The Ocean’. The lyric. Sorry everyone but I nailed that sucker! Playing live is The Dimension. You're a musician. Playing music is what you should be doing, not loading squiggles onto a computer screen.
Is Otis “The Greatest” Redding still in your thoughts? Your music has soul.
Well cheers again. If any musician performs with absolute conviction, that's usually enough for me. You can tell what's true and what isn't. Otis Redding has soul. People on American Idol generally pretend to have soul or do some imitation of what they think is soul. Usually hysteria and vocal gymnastics. It ends up meaning nothing.
“Shayno—gee, he’s written a lot of great songs hasn’t he? Hard to pick one. ‘If I Were You’ [Straitjacket Fits], that is a really great song: stalker song [sings some ‘If I Were You’]. I quite like writing those songs too. I’ve written quite a few stalker-songs myself, because it’s not appropriate to be like that in real life, but when you really have a strong feeling for someone that’s how you feel, you want to wear their clothes and steal their friends, just be psycho and love them in psycho ways. But you can’t, so you write a song about it. It’s cool, it’s really intense. I like intensity,” Anna Coddington told me. Does ‘If I Were You’ still speak to you?
Yeah that's one of my better ones. It was originally a different arrangement with different lyrics. There's a live version of that old version from Australian TV floating around somewhere. But we did a new musical arrangement when we recorded it and I had an afternoon to write a new lyric so in this case a deadline really worked. The lyric has a nice ambiguity to it that I try to incorporate in a lot of my work. On this new record I deliberately used very simple words so nearly every line has a double meaning. I guess people are never going to notice that but it was important to me.
“Rock n roll has taken me everywhere from the Winz office in Dunedin to the Arista offices in New York with both locations providing their own oppressive ambience,” you say. “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side,” Hunter S. Thompson puts it. “Bang on. Haha,” Dolf De Borst adds. Further thoughts?
Yeah the music business can be a really shitty and cruel place to be. Artists are generally sensitive people and that kind of stuff can really knock you around. The judgement. The disposability. People way less talented than you deciding your affairs. Power to the artists! But music's not shitty and cruel. In fact it's completely the opposite. It's a powerful spiritual and social force that makes me feel better every fucking morning.
What should every aspiring creative person know about WINZ?
To be honest I haven't been on the dole for a long time but it always used to make me laugh when they'd be saying "So this music thing is all very well but you need to get a real job " and you'd be sitting there thinking "What, like yours?"
“A lot of artists complain about the limited space they have, rather than trying to find ways to say what they want within that space,” the Saudi female filmmaker Haifaa Al-Mansour told me. Comment?
Well there's a lot to be said for a limited palette. Is that what she's saying? Too many choices gets confusing. I've always liked minimalism and the idea of quintessential truths. It's all in the editing. It probably goes back to what I was saying about Mozart earlier. Cutting away the dross and finding the essence. Or if she's talking about the oppression or conservatism around her. That can be a very inspirational thing to react to as well.
Schubert’s lieder, Chopin’s Nocturnes, Debussy’s neo psychedelia, Mozart’s pristine classicism, Beethoven’s cosmic exploration. I agree this stuff is amazing. Can you expand on the essential influence and inspiration of one or two of these artists on your new album Offsider?
The fact their music could reach out and touch me across the centuries - I found that really profound and moving. I was also fascinated by their work processes, and how they produced so much. They were so young when they died - Schubert was 31, Mozart 36, Chopin 39, but they were mind blowingly prolific. I could go on for ages about these people. Schubert was a big influence. My album title is half a reference to the character in his song "der Doppleganger" or the figure of The Wanderer in "Wintereisse". Two of my favorite quotes - someone writing about Bach and saying how his note changes were "unexpected yet inevitable". Any songwriter should put that on their wall. Or another description of Mozart's music being like a deep crystal pool with no fake profundity muddying the waters. I'd put that on the wall as well.
What do you hope Offsider’s impact is? What do you want it to accomplish?
Personally just finishing the record and having it say what I intended it to say is the accomplishment for me. I can't predict or control beyond that. I suspect it's not music that gives itself up straight away but it's got depth and I guess I'd hope there were listeners with the patience and time to discover that.
How do you keep your edge? What’s your current philosophy on experimentation and adventure?
Keep moving. Try not to become an imitation of yourself. Try to find new angles to stay excited and passionate about what you do. Without that you're lost. I've recently played a bunch of improv shows with my old pals Michael (Morley) and Robbie (Yeats) from the Dead C. Sometimes we were flailing about but sometimes we hit these grooves that were utterly transcendent that you could never plan or write. It's all grist to the mill. It all informs my own stuff. I've done extracurricular things that range from singing backing vocals on a Bic Runga album to playing two hour jams with the Dead C. It's all music. Somewhere in any of that I can find a pocket where it feels good and I know that what I'm doing is true.
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Base FM has joined Artweek Auckland this year wth Cover Story, an exhibition in which more than 80 of its DJs present their most prized record sleeves and the story behind their affections. It runs from tomorrow until November 5, at Studio One, Room 10, 1 Ponsonby Road.
There's a launch at the gallery tomorrow evening which you can sign up for via the Facebook event page.
For now, here's a taster. Peter McLennan (aka Peter Mac of Saturday morning's Ring the Alarm show) talks about his choice ...
'Chains', by DLT featuring Che Fu (yes, Che Fu was guesting on it, and if you are one of those eggs who credit it as being a song by DLT and Che Fu, you are forgetting what a huge landmark it was for a DJ to make his own album here) is the greatest song ever to come out of Ponsonby.
Then there’s 'Chains Remix' (including Mighty Asterix and Ras Daan), with its killer opening lines that burst thru from the pounding drums (DLT tunes always had great drums!)…
“Well I grew up in Ponsonby, they take the Gluepot now they coming for me, but hell no, I won't go away, Ponsonby, where I live, Ponsonby where I stay… I never asked you to put a cafe in my street…”
That’s some deep history right there. That is connected to what BaseFM is all about, and the changes we live thru. That’s the greatest song ever ABOUT Ponsonby.
I remember DJing that Chains Remix once at an afternoon gig at the KA a few years back, and two cats turned round and instantly started singing along. They were both BaseFM DJs. Shot.
Chains emerged in July 1996 and blasted to number one on the singles charts, at a time when there had only ever been one other local hiphop song to achieve that feat - Hiphop Holiday by Three The Hard Way, in 1994. Like that song, Chains arrived amidst a musical landscape where local radio programmers still thought rap music was a fad that would die out, and radio stations here had slogans like ‘No rap, no crap.’
This stinky notion ain’t a million miles away from the ugly 70s rantings of the ‘Disco Suck’s’ campaign led by the old white rock dogs - go look up the Disco Demolition Rally to see what kind of special brand of stupid rock radio DJs are capable of (as if you didn’t know that already - insert contemporary local example/s here).
The song came out in July 1996, only two weeks after Che Fu had been kicked out of his previous band Supergroove. Chains stayed at number one for 5 weeks. Must have been pretty stink for Supergroove to see that guy you just kicked out of your band at the top of the charts every week. Bet Che didn't feel stink tho.
Meanwhile DLT wasn't seeking out the limelight, going out to clubs going "Yo, I'm here, what's up?", instead he stayed home with his family and giggled his head off. "Every morning I woke up... 'It's still number one! Hee hee hee...'. (Quotes from Hiphop music in Aotearoa, by Gareth Shute - go buy that book and school yourself).
And that wicked chorus? Che made that up on the spot. In a 2005 interview with DJ Sir-vere for Back2Basics magazine, Che revealed how it came about…
"DLT was doing his own album and asked me to do a track. So I turn up at the studio to do this track. As far as I knew I was just going to bust a rhyme on one of his songs. I go in the booth and he says 'You got your chorus ready?' I was like 'Chorus?' I didn't want to look like I didn't know what I was doing, so I said 'I just have to go to the toilet.'
"I go into the toilet and am like 'oh my god, oh my god! He thinks I'm doing a whole track.' So I stand there, in the toilet, and came up with 'Come break my chains come help me out...' I went straight back to the booth and sung it even though I had made it up 30 seconds before!"
Che had never told anyone that story (apart from his manager and his lady) before that interview.
The other great story about Chains is that his label A & R at BMG, Kirk Harding, kept sending DLT back into the studio until he got the version that satisfied him. Apparently he sent them back to the studio THIRTEEN times. I’ve heard some of those other mixes. They are freaking awesome. Such great drums. That man knows his beats. True School represent!
Ironically, given the theme of that song, Base is facing a move away from its own Ponsonby HQ, which has been marked for development. And, as this backgrounder explains, the station doesn't have a lot of time to find a new home. You can chip in to their Givealittle fundraiser to help with the costs associated with the move. This video explains why it matters:
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Another music-related Artweek Auckland event: as part of the Changing Lanes project, Paul Woodruffe and some of his Unitec students have printed huge versions of Jeremy Templer's photographs from the scene around the seminal Auckland punk club Zwines, which will be affixed in Durham Lane, where Zwines used to be. A Simon Grigg-curated exhibition in The Bluestone Room, the old Zwines site, opens today and has more of Jeremy's work from the time.
No one should be at all surprised at this week's news that the King's Arms property has been put up for sale. That was the clear implication of the pub and its carpark being designated as a Special Housing Area back in April. You can read my post about the fairly confusing series of statements made in the days that followed the designation.
The upshot of it all is that Maureen Gordon, the formidable publican who has owned the King's Arms business and building with two partners since 1993, was clearly considering her future. And fair enough, too. She's not getting any younger and she owns a very valuable property. As the property listing says:
“It is zoned Mixed Use, and under the Auckland Unitary Plan, this benefits from an additional height overlay allowance of 32.5m. This is one of the most favourable height overlays in the city fringe.
“The proposed new 32.5m height limit is considerably higher than the current mixed use zoning which has a maximum height restriction of 15m.
That's up to eight stories. So what happens now? That's a little complicated. Unless the developers who applied (with Maureen's permission) for the original SHA designation have applied again to have it extended as allowed by a recent law change, the SHA (which also includes two neighbouring properties, 11 and 13 Karaka Street) will expire a year after it was granted –ie, next April.
The new Unitary Plan zoning actually offers the right to build two stories higher than the SHA designation did. But assorted nimbys have filed court challenges that could delay the Unitary Plan being coming into force for up to a year. So there could yet be a gap between the site being sold and the new owners actually being able to develop it.
Whatever happens, we are, sooner or later likely to lose a live music venue that is important to multiple local music communities and also works for a certain tier of international artists. The current licence would be sold with the building and the older part of the pub is covered by a pre-1944 demolition overlay which makes the demolition of the building a discretionary activity. So it would be the subject of a resource consent application which the council may approve or decline.
It's quite possible that the heritage part would therefore be preserved in some form, but I don’t think that it would be likely to continue to operate as a venue for loud music. It would more likely return to its original status as a neighbourhood corner pub:
Because, let's not forget that until the motorway junction drove out as many as 30,000 people, this was a residential neighbourhood. That's the KA circled there (thanks to Patrick Reynolds for the pic):
A lot of people lived in Newton and we are going to see some of that residential population return in the next 10 years. That is not a bad thing.
The forced relocation of so many local residents in the 1960s and 1970s had another effect: it spelled the end of Karangahape Road's identity as a mainstream department store destination. And when the motorway split K Road, it stranded the west end of the ridge. It was pretty much a disaster for the existing merchants – but it led to the red-light era and thence the edgy, bohemian K Road we know and value today.
I think we need to start having a serious discussion about cultural infrastructure as residential building returns to this part of town. Because it's quite possible that this isn't the only venue at risk. The Powerstation only opens for shows three or four times a month. It could be used more often, but its owner-operators, Muchmore Music, demand a pretty substantial room hire fee, which isn't economic for many shows. They seem committed to running a venue, just not very often.
But when the City Rail Link opens in five years time, the venue will be just up the hill from the redeveloped Mt Eden station. It's going to be an attractive place to live and it's easy to see the owners being tempted to sell up for residential development.
What the King's Arms and the Powerstation have in common is that they are reasonably large rectangular boxes, which makes them ideal rock 'n' roll venues. That's a hard kind of building to find – and an even harder one to build – in the current environment. While the Wine Cellar and Whammy have done a good job of making the most of their space and Galatos seems to work well, the only real "big box" on K Road is The Studio.
Let's be honest about The Studio: it's a former nightclub that really has its drawbacks as a live music venue. It needs its insides ripped out to remove the irksome bottleneck that makes it such hard work to be at sometimes. Can its owner, John Grant, afford to do that?
Here's the thing: Auckland got another new theatre last week, the $36 million Waterfront Theatre in the Wynyard precinct. More than $4 million for that facility came from Creative New Zealand, with further contributions from ASB Bank, Foundation North, AUT and many private donors. It's a marvellous achievment for the Auckland Theatre Company, which has been without a home for 10 years.
Is it time to start thinking about taking music seriously as culture too? The person in the local government scene who is currently talking like that is mayoral aspirant Chloe Swarbrick. She has an Arts, Culture and Nightlife policy with some good ideas in it. The simple fact that she's saying "culture" and nightlife" in the same sentence is pretty special in itself.
Barring a monumental upset, Phil Goff will be Auckland's next mayor. There's not much chance of him suddenly becoming Groovy Phil the Nightlife Mayor. But I'm seeing a job for Chloe right there.
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Meanwhile, here's some good news on the music venue front: REC is a record shop and venue cooked up by Connor Nestor and Samuel Harmony. It's not uptown but downtown – at 38 Customs Street East – and it opens to the public on Friday October 14, with a show by Cut off Your Hands and Yukon Era. Scuba Diva and Purple Pilgrims play the next night and there's a record fair on the Sunday. That's an excellent first weekend!
Connor tells me their "ultimate goal is the make this a space where people can hear music in context. Artists have a brilliant time and people enjoy themselves." He sounds pretty excited about the Martin Audio Wavefront sound system they're preparing to install.
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In case you were wondering, this weeks music post isn't late because I went to the Apra Silver Scrolls after-party last night (although I did), but because some monster scheduled me a 9.30am board meeting.
But last night was pretty special. The returning host John Campbell was relaxed and eloquent and the show itself felt quite different to last year's slightly strained anniversary award. Back then, he was between jobs. This year, he was the face of a public broadcaster that continues to reinvent itself in interesting ways. Perhaps we're all in a better space.
I've never seen the honouring of a Hall of Fame recipient become the keynote of the evening in quite the way that the celebration of Moana Maniapoto did this year. From Hinewehi Mohi bursting into tears before she could even begin her tribute, to Moana's own soulful speech (including a fine and graceful shout-out to her ex-husband Willie) to the remarkable scenes when she returned to the floor of the event, it was the centrepiece of an evening that was, more than anything, a celebration of Maori creativity. There was quite a lot of crying going on for quite a long time.
I also thought it was remarkable that the musical tribute to Moana, both in te reo Maori and English, was performed by Soccer Practise, a band from quite a different tradition to that from which Moana emerged:
Oh, and I think my favourite of the finalist cover versions was the "supergroup" Oystercatcher, who played the Phoenix Foundation's 'Give Up Your Dreams'. I don't think I've ever seen Steve Abel shimmy like that!
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Earlier in the week I went along to to Sony Music NZ's artist showcase at Brothers Beer. Firstly, let me say that I thoroughly approve of launches being held at Brothers Beer. Mmmm. Beer.
The showcase was facsinating too. It was essentially a look at how artist development happens now. It makes more sense for labels to sign and develop individual artists rather than bands, and so it was that three young men were presented.
The first, Mitch James, was signed while he was away trying his luck (and kind of starving) on the streetcorners of Europe, off the back of YouTube videos like this.
Yes, doing cover versions of hit songs and posting them on the internet is a reasonable path to a recording contract these days. He's got the patter and the vocal projection of a busker too, which doesn't hurt.
Next up was Benny Tipene, who is both freakier and seemingly more comfortable with himself than he was when we first heard of him on a TV talent show. Like Mitch, he's been co-writing some songs with Dave Baxter (aka Avalanche City), who is signed to Sony/ATV for the pubishing that represents the bulk of his income. They're good, sound pop songs and I wonder if this is the start of a little bit of a hit factory.
Last up was Thomston, who is quite a different kind of artist – less identifiably Kiwi, sort of alt-pop-R&B. He's managed by Scott Maclachlan, Lorde's fomer manager and was the subject of quite a scramble to sign him last year – he eventually went with Sony Music Australia. He has already built up quite some momentum in advance of his debut album, Topograph, which is out today. I think he's a significant talent.
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Also out today Electric Wire Hustle's new album The 11th Sky. Here's a YouTube sampler:
Anything Could Happen is a performance, music, and multimedia immersive environment that reimagines moments from the legendary early-80s Dunedin music scene in a way that celebrates the city’s current crop of culturally diverse artists. The project will unfold over three days at the historic Dunedin Athenaeum and Mechanics' Institute, with satellite events in Christchurch and two popular arts venues in Los Angeles, California.
The aim is to appeal to those who are already familiar with this wonderful music, while introducing a broader audience to the magic of the Dunedin Sound. The event will also spotlight the present-day and emerging artists in theatre, music, video art, dance, photography, and new media who are keeping Dunedin a vibrant cultural centre.
So Spotify is preparing to buy Soundcloud. Soundcloud has really been needing something to happen and perhaps this might be a good thing. But for now, this practice of posting "previews" of tracks on a music discovery site that currently offers no compelling case for a paid subscription to unlock them is just really irksome ...
New Jagwar Ma:
And new A. Skillz!
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