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Quand on arrive en Nouvelle-Zélande, on se sent forcément loin de chez soi.
“Arriving in New Zealand, you inevitably feel a long way from home.”

Charles Juliet – Auckland, août 2003

On the recommendation of a Twitter buddy, I’ve been reading Charles Juliet‘s Au pays du long nuage blanc: his journal of six months in New Zealand in 2003 while on a writer’s fellowship in Wellington.

Like all New Zealanders who are by nature slightly insecure about their nation’s reputation abroad, I was initially interested to see what an eminent French author thought of our country. Indeed, Juliet picks up on many of the usual kiwi tropes: the friendliness and informality of people, the centrality of rugby to the national narrative and the lack of insulation and heating in our houses.

The journal oscillates between observations of some of the remarkable aspects of life in New Zealand and reflections on Juliet’s own craft as a writer and poet. Descriptions of the weather constantly intervene, as one might expect given that Juliet spent a winter in Wellington!

Wellington, NZ – May 2008

Juliet spends much of his time exchanging with some of New Zealand’s notable intellectuals: Vincent O’Sullivan, Dame Fiona Kidman and Gordon Stewart among others. In particular he describes long lunchtime conversations with Chris Laidlaw, (broadcaster, diplomat, politician, academic and former All Black). Juliet also devotes many pages reflecting on his long-time admiration for Katherine Mansfield.

Juliet’s journal provided a personal connection too: when Juliet visits Auckland, it is at the invitation Professor Raylene Ramsay at Auckland University, who supervised my Honours dissertation! It was a curious experience to have the name of a personal acquaintance dropped into the middle of a book bought at FNAC Montparnasse.

Charles Juliet (Image: Léa Crespi, Télérama)

Despite the obvious pleasure Charles Juliet derives from his time in New Zealand, the journal is haunted by his awareness of the great distance that separates him from his homeland, France. And when Juliet finally leaves New Zealand in January 2004, he acknowledges that he will never return to the Land of the Long White Cloud.

Au pays du long nuage blanc is an easy read (I finished it in just 2 days), and would be of interest to anyone who wants to explore strands of the relationship between France and New Zealand. It’s published by Gallimard in Folio for EUR5.60.

Finies ces longues errances
sous des ciels éteints
Finis ces combats truqués
Où j’étais toujours vaincu
Fini ce temps installé
Dans la misère du non
J’ai déposé le poids mort
qui obscurcissait ma vie
Long a été le chemin
qui m’a permis
de quitter mon enfance

Charles Juliet – Wellington, décembre 2003

Wyuna Bay, Coromandel Peninsula, NZ – June 2008

Batucada Sound Machine is one of the many bands that grew out of Auckland’s funk/soul scene in the early years of the century. As far as I can recall, the scene congealed around a certain number of DJs and musicians. Club nights and the audience followed.

The scene was characterised by large-scale bands such as The Hot Grits, Tangent, Opensouls and one million dollars. If one were poetic and lazy one might say that the music reflected Auckland’s urban and cosmopolitan identity: jazz, soul, hip-hop, afrobeat, latin and funk congealing in one big sweaty mess.

Sound engineers either relished or dreaded the prospect of setting up a stage for a dozen musicians including horns, berimbau, harmonicas, surdos and multiple vocalists. A 24-channel desk was a minmum requirement. As were fun but low-budget music videos:

Of course, apart from a few forays to Australia, the sheer size of these bands has meant that they haven’t been heard often beyond New Zealand’s shores. BSM is an exception – a 2006 tour saw them play venues across Europe including WOMAD Reading.

This year they’re back in Europe for a month of gigs across the continent and the UK. They are definitely worth catching if they’re playing in a town near you. You will like them, and you will dance.

Here are the full tour dates:

June 11 2010 Blossom Festival, Alfândega da Fé, Portugal
June 12 2010 Ollin Kan Festival, Vila Do Conde, Portugal
June 15 2010 Music Box, Lisboa, Portugal
June 18 2010 Sala Caracol, Madrid, Spain
June 19 2010 Sala Joplin, Segovia, Spain
June 25 2010 Bitterzoet, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
June 26 2010 Afro Latino Festival, Bree, Belgium
June 27 2010 Wereldfeest, Utrecht, The Netherlands
June 28 2010 Colos-Saal, Aschaffenburg, Germany
June 30 2010 Universum, Stuttgart, Germany
July 1 2010 Café Hahn, Koblenz, Germany
July 2 2010 Scala, Leverkusen, Germany
July 3 2010 Bar Du Matin, Brussels, Belgium
July 4 2010 Lustspielhaus, Munich, Germany
July 5 2010 Spectrum Club, Augsburg, Germany
July 7 2010 Guanabara, London, UK
July 8 2010 The Stables, Milton Keynes, UK
July 9 2010 Durham International Brass Festival, UK
July 10 2010 Norwich, UK
July 11 2010 Mouth of the Tyne Festival, Newcastle, UK

There were plans to write some big old posts about Easter and music this weekend, but got busy, then distracted, then got writer’s block (well, that’s my excuse). But I did enjoy rediscovering Taika Waititi‘s first short film, Two Cars, One Night.

Made in 2003, the film shows the story of a girl and two boys meeting outside a rural pub while their parents are drinking inside.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award, which in hindsight seems a remarkable achievement for a film made in the pub carpark in Te Kaha, featuring two old cars and inpenetrable Maori English accents.

Apparently Taika Waititi’s new feature film Boy is doing very well in the cinemas in its home country. It mines similar themes and settings to Two Cars, One Night, extending them into a full-length story of a family growing up on the East Coast of the North Island, and features music by The Phoenix Foundation and, of course, Patea Maori Club’s Poi E, the greatest song of the 1980s except for Michael Jackson…

I wonder if it’ll make it to cinemas in Paris, and what French audiences will think ?

According to some people, midnight tonight marks the end of a decade. At first glance it’s hard to see how far we’ve come in this time. It’s been a decade of Dick Cheney, Harry Potter sequels and The X Factor, but surely there’s been some personal growth going on beneath the radar too.

Tash tweeted today that “we grew older, further apart and closer together, grew deeper, wiser, more foolish. Lost and found hope, but didn’t grow Up.“  Which is lovely, and possibly true if I could work out what it meant, but I thought I’d try to capture some of the spirit of the “noughties” (as I experienced it) in ten photos…

2000: living in France the first time round, learning to be an Alsatian. Hanging out in a small town at the foot of the Vosges, hiking in the hills to work off the tonnes of tartes flambées consumed.

2001: back in Auckland, joined one million dollars.  For a short period, we were something like the biggest little funk band in the land: albums, low-budget music videos and collective food poisoning in Vanuatu ensued.

Flatting in Western Springs in the first half of the decade: I learnt how to be (mostly) a vegetarian and make leek-and-potato soup.  In between cooking, we used the kitchen to make low-budget music videos.

Helping out with youth group leadership at St Paul’s Remuera, I ended up driving the van on our now-legendary ski trips. Little sleep was had by all involved, but we did get to see Paradise.

2004-06: Getting wrapped up into the free improv scene in Auckland, we formed slightly inexplicable musical units such as the Dominion Centenary Concert Band. Audiences didn’t understand what we were doing, but that was OK, because neither did we. But the costumes were fabulous.

2005: Got paid a moderately obscene sum of money to be an extra in Peter Jackson’s King Kong. It turned out to be one of the worst films of the decade, but at least the costumes were fabulous.

Over the course of the decade, I managed to ski at Le Markstein, Châtel, Méribel, Val Thorens, Arolla, Zinal and Grimentz (in Europe); and at Whakapapa, Turoa, The Remarkables, Coronet Peak and Cardrona (in NZ). My skiing didn’t improve much, but I fell down a lot and bought a helmet.

2006-2008: In Oxford, another spiritual home was discovered. A town where you can consult mediaeval manuscripts in the Bodleian and chase semi-wild horses on Port Meadow within 15 minutes walking distance.

In the UK, one slightly inexplicable musical project got replaced by another: The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band. It provided an excuse to tour the pubs of Oxfordshire.

2009: finally made it back to France on the back of an MBA degree. Montpellier was hot, friendly and offered great opportunities for hiking, including the lovely Gorges de Lamalou.

So somehow I’ve finished the decade by moving to Paris. Looking back, it’s been a busy ten years, and I’m thankful for the good friends and family who have shared it with me.  I always had the impression I could have fitted more in, but in fact quite a lot got achieved anyway despite the procrastination and the blogging.

I hope the next decade is just as action-packed. I just wonder if the costumes will be quite as fabulous.

Have a very Happy New Year, all of you, near and far.  All the best for a peaceful and fulfilling 2010.

Psalm 23 (for Toby) (arr. Rowley)
Performed by the King’s School Chapel Choir – Auckland, NZ, November 1991

Back when the world was a little younger than it is now, I sang in the chapel choir at my prep school. Recently, an mp3 conversion of a 1991 recording of the choir (complete with tape hiss) has fallen into my hands. Hearing this music again provoked reflection on an important phase in my musical education.

Surprisingly, 18 years later, the cassette doesn’t entirely make me cringe. We were a pretty decent choir – nowhere near the standard of King’s Cambridge, but entirely respectable for a bunch of 10-to-13 years olds. A few flat kiwi vowels rather ruin the Latin of Fauré’s Ave Verum; the phrasing and timing of consonants is a little haphazard, but overall, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

It’s strange knowing that all those unbroken voices now belong to men who are fathers, engineers, lawyers, marketing lecturers and dentists, living in half a dozen countries. One of us has even served tours of duty in Afghanistan. At one time we were all choristers.

My four years in the choir were entirely formative. First of all, we learned performance discipline. We had four 8am rehearsals on weekday mornings, and four sung services a week (3 weekday chapels and 1 Sunday service), all year outside school holidays. In later musical projects, that sense of committment remains: if you’re in the band, you’re part of a team: turn up to rehearsals, and do the gigs. No excuses.

Benjamin Britten – There is no rose from Ceremony of Carols (Op.28)
Performed by the King’s School Chapel Choir – Auckland, NZ, November 1991

For me, one piece we performed stood out from the rest of our repertoire – Britten’s There is no rose from his Ceremony of Carols. It sounded deep and ancient, a hint of a wider musical world that we might encounter in years to come. At 13 years old, singing Britten somehow seemed serious work, like we were actually performing real music, whatever that was.

Hindsight is treacherous. The imagination has a habit of creating links to the past that perhaps aren’t there. But I can’t help believing that a big part of my love for music finds its roots in endless winter mornings spent in chapel, all those vocal exercises, the routine of robing and the inexorable rhythm of the Book of Common Prayer.

We probably didn’t completely appreciate what we were doing at the time, but almost two decades later, all that singing starts to make sense.

Stephen Sondheim – Send in the Clowns
Performed by the King’s School Chapel Choir – Auckland, NZ, November 1991

Sir Howard Morrison died today. He was one of New Zealand’s most popular entertainers for 50 years, and a man who used his talent and energy to advance the causes of his people.

A humourist,  a musician, a quietly committed activist, he will be remembered for many things, but his performance of Whakaaria mai (How Great Thou Art, sung in Maori) will remain a treasured memory for anyone who heard it live or on television.

[Edit: for a more nuanced and detailed appreciation by a knowledgeable critic, Graham Reid's piece on Public Address is well worth reading]

Kua hinga he Kauri nui i roto i te waonui o Tane. Hoki atu ra ki o tuupuna Matua i Hawaiki nui, Hawaiki roa, Hawaiki pamamao.

Thought this was worth posting… the video for SJD/Sean Donnelly‘s new single Baby You’re Oh So. A really nice concept, which takes me back to my earliest computer experiences on the neighbour’s Apple IIe in about 1984.

(Hat tip – video found via Andrew Dubber’s tweet.)

Nice to see Sean working with Chris O’Connor on drums these days. I’ve worked with both Tom Atkinson (Sean’s previous drummer) and Chris, both excellent musicians. Among various improv and jazz projects, Chris also plays with Don McGlashan, and probably will lend a more organic sound to Sean’s live set.

Here’s my photo of Chris at the beach in New Zealand a few years back.

Back in the 1980s, Tip Top Ice Cream advertised its Popsicle iceblocks with a group of animated pop stars, called the “Popsicle band” (a strawberry iceblock played drums, a negroid cola-block played bass etc etc). The Popsicle Band still exist as a marketing campaign, but their title as the “coolest band in the land” has well and truly been usurped by seven musicians from Wellington.

Fat Freddy’s Drop‘s first studio album Based on a True Story went seven times platinum in their home country in 2005. The band has made ripples elsewhere too, with props from DJs like Gilles Peterson and several sell-out tours to Europe under their belt (where tellingly it’s not just expat kiwis in Grey Lynn t-shirts turning up to gigs).

This week,  their second studio album Dr Boondigga and the Big BW got dropped into the pond, complete with right-on vintage Maori ghetto cover artwork by Otis Frizzell. The release is probably a small event in the global scheme of things, but pretty big news in New Zealand.

Fat Freddy’s Drop live at Zenith, Paris in 2008

Is the new album any good? The answer, at least to this pair of ears is: indubitably YES. The sound and approach is more mature, the tunes gel as an album. This is still the downbeat-electro-souljazz-dub-reggae of their previous efforts, but somehow all these dimensions have been pushed further out.

The horns are more in the pocket than ever, Mu‘s beats are deeper and fatter, the soul tunes sound like The Commodores remixed by Sly and Robbie at Parihaka. And perhaps as a recognition that the band now has a 9-year heritage, the horns make a sly reference on Wild Wind to the hook from their 2001 Live at the Matterhorn EP.

Points off? The opening hornline on The Nod which sounds so scarily tripletised when played live, loses some its impact in the studio. And lyrically, I’ve never been satisfied with the bands  “I want to wake up with the sunshine on my face/Yes let’s all live in peace and unity at the beach” themes. But Freddy’s is a dance band, so quibbles about Dallas‘ words are probably missing the point.

Mu at the Roundhouse, 2008 (Photo: Eric Wang)

Early reports indicate that the disc is flying off the shelves in New Zealand faster than the first album. It deserves to, because this is a better album than their studio debut. Pop industry forces will likely militate to ensure that this music doesn’t get as broad an international audience as it deserves, but most kiwis will be content with Fat Freddy’s Drop simply being the coolest band in the land.

You can hear the new album on their site, on theirspace and the album is available as mp3s or as a CD via amplifier.

Dallas Tamaira (Image: Eric Wang)

The Bay

On the road to the bay was a lake of rushes

Where we bathed at times and changed in the bamboos.

Now it is rather to stand and say

How many roads we take that lead to Nowhere,

The alley overgrown, no meaning now but loss:

Not that veritable garden where everything comes easy.

And by the bay itself were cliffs with carved names

And a hut on the shore by the Maori ovens.

We raced boats from the banks of the pumice creek

Or swam in those autumnal shallows

Growing cold in amber water, riding the logs

Upstream, and waiting for the taniwha.

So now I remember the bay and the little spiders

On driftwood, so poisonous and quick.

The carved cliffs and the great outcrying surf

With currents round the rocks and the birds rising.

A thousand times an hour is torn across

And burned for the sake of going on living.

But I remember the bay that never was

And stand like stone and cannot turn away.

-James K. Baxter (1926-1972)

The weather’s too good this weekend to spend time indoors writing a long blog post. So here’s Another New Zealand Music Month Post, immodestly featuring my old band… I discovered this clip that I didn’t think was online, but someone’s posted it. The song is The Original off our first album. Luckily I don’t appear the clip at all!

Filmed over a weekend on a road near Muriwai beach, in downtown Auckland, and on the cycle path along the Northwestern Motorway… shoestring budgets and digital post-production all the way!