2005 February | etnobofin

Feb
28
2005

Love…is a burning thing…

So on Saturday night I dreamt I was playing trumpet in Johnny Cash’s band at the Aotea Centre (playing the hornline from Ring of Fire).

We finished the concert with a rendition of Ring of Fire (of course) and then Johnny’s encore consisted of going down into the audience and playing some solo stuff. Tennessee Stud, and probably some other songs off his American Recordings album (1994). I ended up crying because of the generosity of Mr Cash’s gesture to his audience – actually going and down and sitting with them and singing songs.

Written by Richard in: Music | Tags: aotea centre, dream, johnny cash, ring of fire

Feb
27
2005

Karneval for Auckland

And so we embark into Auckland‘s second true Arts Festival – AK05: a project that has been a long time coming to this city, and has suffered innumerable setbacks over the years. Brian Rudman made some good points in the Herald on Friday… as the Auckland Festival moves into the future, we should be playing to our city’s strengths as a city in the Asia-Pacific.

Written by Richard in: Current Affairs,New Zealand | Tags: ak05, auckland, brian rudman, festival, New Zealand

Feb
27
2005

Karneval for Auckland

My thought was – the AK05/07/09 festivals are scheduled to take place in February/March every two years – that’s Karneval season in cities around the world, from Rio to New Orleans to Nice to Köln. Why not turn the bloody thing into an Auckland Karneval… incorporating aspects of the Pasifika Festival, the Chinese Lunar New Year, the Secondary Schools Maori and Pacific Islands Festival and European-style Carnival/Mardi Gras.

AK Samba- In Wellington, of all places

So many of the elements are already in place: the city has a samba school, we’ve got kapa haka, dragon dancers, Polynesian performance groups of all ethnicities, brass bands, and maybe we could attract some hippies from Coromandel to do fire poi. This would make for one mother of a parade. So much of this stuff is already “operational” and loved by Aucklanders at events such as the Grey Lynn Festival, the K Road Karnival, Pasifika and the Lantern Festival. We could run the parade as the centrepiece of the arts festival. Close the city for three days and party. It would rock. Let’s do it.

Written by Richard in: Current Affairs,New Zealand | Tags: ak05, auckland, festival, New Zealand

Feb
26
2005

Gritty

A capacity Friday night crowd greeted The Hot Grits last evening at the first installment of the Auckland Festival Late Lounge at the Wintergarden. They are a really fun band, and had the punters filling the dancefloor in about 3 seconds flat. A nice set of Meters-inspired funk and several large, extended dollops of Afrobeat (what’s with the rise of Afrobeat Orchestras in NZ at the moment? The Grits here in Auckland, Scribes of Ra in Wellington. There’s an audience out there for it too…)

Some Grits at Float bar, August 2004

Since the Grits dont have any records available, its a good thing they’ve put some of their songs online.

Written by Richard in: Music,New Zealand | Tags: ak05, auckland, funk, hot grits, Music, New Zealand, wintergarden

Feb
25
2005

Breakin the Beat

Broke n’Beat Radio – respect. Now I’m not always the biggest fan of dance/club music, but there is some stuff I can really get to: for example, the stream of work represented by artists like NuSpirit Helsinki, King Britt, Mark de Clive-Lowe and New Zealand’s own Thisinformation. Broke n’ Beat Radio is one of the best places I’ve found to sample this sort of stuff, an outfit out of Philadelphia that has great DJ sets available online in mp3 and streaming realaudio. Normally there’s a new mp3 every week or so.

They also have a some nice photos and some styley wallpapers… this one particularly grabbed me of course, the cross-colonialism going on here is quite mind-bending.

Tumeke !

For the most part, the stuff served up on Broke’n'Beat is pretty intelligent, and very concious of its roots – whether that’s Sun Ra, Curtis Mayfield or Sugarhill Gang. Nice groovy listening.

Written by Richard in: Music,USA | Tags: broken beat radio, mark de clive-lowe, Music, nuspirit helsinki, philadelphia, thisinformation, USA

Feb
24
2005

one million dollars in Sydney

So here are some photos taken during our successful trip to Sydney. We played two gigs at the Beach Road Hotel in Bondi, who also kindly provided us with accomodation for our stay. Thanks also to Claudia (Sugarlicks Australia), Vitamin Records and everyone who helped the gigs happen !