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12:30 NZ Music Awards 2020: Jazz finalists announced (12’18”)
The finalists for the Best Jazz Artist and Best Jazz Composition have just been announced live on RNZ’s Music 101.
The finalists for the Recorded Music NZ Te Kaipuoro Tautito Toa | Best Jazz Artist are:
Alchemy
Dixon Nacey
Michał Martyniuk
The finalists for APRA Best Jazz Composition are:
Callum Allardice - ‘Phobos & Deimos’
Jake Baxendale - ‘Tui’
Myele Manzanza - ‘Mortality’
The winners will be announced live on Music 101 on Saturday, June 6.
APRA head Anthony Healey says although there's some disappointment the awards can't be presented at the Wellington Jazz Festival as they normally would, the quality and inventiveness of Aotearoa’s jazz composers continues to impress, and they deserve to be celebrated.
Recorded Music NZ's Damian Vaughan says,“Over the last 12 months there have been a wealth of technically impressive, emotionally charged jazz recordings released in Aotearoa. It’s a remarkable music scene, which is consistently among the best in the world.”
About the best Jazz Artist finalists:
Alchemy
Alchemy was created with one goal in mind: the reinvention of iconic Kiwi pop songs as leading-edge jazz.
Featuring six of New Zealand’s finest jazz vocalists – Allana Goldsmith, Bex Peterson, Caitlin Smith, Chelsea Prastiti, Lou’ana Whitney, and Marjan Nelson – and six of New Zealand’s most accomplished jazz instrumentalists – Kevin Field (piano), Richard Hammond (bass), Roger Manins (tenor saxophone), Ron Samsom and Stephen Thomas (drums), and Michael Howell (guitar) - the talent on display is formidable.
The eponymous ALCHEMY album was released on 13 December 2019 to critical acclaim and remarkable sales results, reaching Number 11 on the Official New Zealand Top Twenty Albums Chart.
Dixon Nacey
During a 27-year long career, Dixon Nacey has worked with some of the finest local and international musicians across a wide range of genres. He is in high demand as a session musician and sideman, and has been the Musical Director for the “Coca- Cola Christmas in the Park” since 2016.
His 2019 album The Edge of Chaos was his debut as bandleader, featuring seven superb compositions and a raft of talented musicians including Dixon on guitar, Roger Manins (saxophone), Kevin Field (piano), Olivier Holland (bass), Andy Keegan (drums), and Jonathan Leung & Chelsea Prastiti as vocals on ‘Taupo’.
Michal Martyniuk
Polish-born, New Zealand-based Michal Martyniuk is the third finalist for this year’s Recorded Music NZ Best Jazz Artist award for his album Resonate.
Dividing his time between Poland and New Zealand, Michal is a pianist, composer and a music producer whose jazz career skyrocketed after placing second at the prestigious “Made In New York” Jazz Competition in New York City in May 2018.
After performing his own compositions on stage alongside judges and jazz legends Randy Brecker, John Pattitucci, Mike Stern and Francisco Mela, he went on to release his first solo album Nothing To Prove later that year.
APRA Best Jazz Composition:
Callum Allardice
After winning APRA Best Jazz Composition for the third time last year for his composition Chungin’, Callum Allardice is back for the fourth consecutive year with his song ‘Phobos & Deimos’.
In 2016 Callum’s Sons of Thunder took home the inaugural Best Jazz Composition Award at the NZ Jazz Awards, and he followed that up by winning the same award in 2017 for Deep Thought.
Jake Baxendale
As part of the group Antipodes, Jake Baxendale is no stranger to the Jazz Awards. In 2018 the group released their debut album Good Winter and went on to be a finalist for Best Jazz Artist at the 2019 awards.
Regularly touring both New Zealand and Australia, Jake has released the composition ‘Tui’, which is up for APRA Best Jazz Composition at this year’s awards.
Myele Manzanza
Born in New Zealand to a Congolese master percussionist, Myele Manzanza is a drummer and composer who has since established himself on the world stage, collaborating with artists like Theo Parrish, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Amp Fiddler, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Jordan Rakei.
In June 2019, Myele released his eagerly anticipated third album A Love Requited, and his song ‘Mortality’ is up for APRA Best Composition this year.
APRA Head of NZ Operations Anthony Healey says: “The quality and inventiveness of Aotearoa’s jazz composers continues to impress and delight us. While we’re disappointed that we’re unable to present these awards at the Wellington Jazz Festival as we normally would, these works all deserve celebration and recognition.”
12:46 The Sampler: Shabaka and the Ancestors
Nick Bollinger discusses the Afro-futurist jazz of Shabaka and the Ancestors.
We Are Sent Here By History by Shabaka and the Ancestors
If you’ve been paying even fleeting attention to British jazz in recent years, it would be hard to have missed the name Shabaka Hutchings, if only because he’s kept himself so busy he seems to be everywhere. The London-born, Barbados-raised and these days London-based saxophonist and composer came to New Zealand a few Wellington Jazz Festivals ago with the ecstatic, Afro-futurist combo The Comet Is Coming!, but that’s only one of several ensembles he juggles, which also include Shabaka and the Ancestors: an ongoing project that pairs him with a group of South African musicians. We Are Sent Here By History is the second album they have made together. It is a serious piece of work that looks both forward and back.
To deal with its futurism first: for these compositions Hutchings has collaborated with vocalist Siyabonga Mthembu whose lyrics - in Zulu, Xhosa and English - address the urgent need for human change, as the world faces a raft of crises. But rather than linger on the negative, Hutchings has talked about ‘articulating our utopias’ and that seems to be what’s going on in pieces like ‘We Will Work (On Redefining Manhood)’ and ‘Run, The Darkness Will Pass’.
Sometimes it is Shabaka and the other players who articulate their utopias through their instruments. Sometimes the lyrics are chants or choruses, and occasionally Mthembu recites his lyrics, in a kind of poetry-and-jazz tradition.
When things get going the results can be exciting, especially in the rhythmic cauldron of African, American and Caribbean beats that bubbles through these tracks. But the music looks back as much as it looks ahead. With Nduduzo Makhathini’s Fender Rhodes keyboard the only electrified instrument, the sound gravitates to that of a mid-60s Miles or Herbie Hancock group. But even more, I’m reminded of the innovative African musicians like Dudu Pukwana and Johnny Dyani who based themselves in Europe in the 60s and 70s.
Hutchings himself takes his cue from the great saxophonists of that era. There are echoes of Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders and especially John Coltrane, who he will still sometimes quote from directly in his solos.
Shabaka and the Ancestors’ We Are Sent Here By History is an album that is perhaps more admirable than it is entertaining. The spoken sections, while providing a focus for the concepts behind the music, can seem like an intrusion, or instruction. Rather than inspire the instrumentalists, at times these seem to be holding them back. And while the high points are wonderful, I just find myself wondering at times whether this is music sent by history or weighed down by it.
13:31 Ryan Fisherman on his new album Vibe (9’12”)
The former member of Doprah performs live and talks to Charlotte about making his debut solo album with help from some Christchurch musical royalty.
13:45 The Sampler: Perfume Genius
Nick takes a look at another concept album about intimacy from Perfume Genius.
Set My Heart On Fire Immediately by Perfume Genius
There’s a double irony at the heart of this album that I’m sure Mike Hadreas, the artist who performs as Perfume Genius, appreciates.
It elaborates on the themes that have driven the work of this queer-identifying artist since his debut a decade ago. It’s a record that takes its inspiration and its energy from human contact. Hadreas sings, with sometimes confronting frankness, about various kinds of encounters, often sexual and palpably physical, and yet he’s released it into a world that is adjusting to a new normal of social distancing. Only to compound the paradox, it’s an album so detailed and rich that it’s perhaps best enjoyed in solitude anyway.
The early Perfume Genius albums were largely home recorded affairs, and some of their intimacy was simply Hadreas making a virtue of budget constraints. But with each new release he’s grown his musical palette and this latest one, produced like 2017’s No Shape by multi-instrumental wizard Blake Mills, is by far the lushest, most instrumentally sumptuous record he’s made. There are live musicians, including legendary session names like Jim Keltner and Pino Palladino. There are glockenspiels, harmoniums, harpsichords and violins. And where Hadreas’s songwriting refers to classic pop styles - for instance the obvious Roy Orbison-isms of a song like ‘Whole Life’ that opens the album - he has the instrumental firepower to back him up.
Hadreas has never sung with more romantic yearning, and a less ambitious artist, buoyed with such an achievement, might stay in that zone for a whole album. But this collection, while thematically cohesive, covers a broad musical ground. And from the Orbisonian opener we drop into the glam-metal power chords of ‘Describe’, only to find the song dissolving into an atmospheric coda in which you can faintly hear Hadreas whispering in the dark. It’s still the same album - in fact, it’s still the same song! And yet it’s an early warning of what an excitingly diverse album this is.
Hadreas is one of the brave artists who isn’t afraid to fail; who will reach outside his comfort zone if there’s a chance it might enrich his work. And some of the inspiration for this album comes from an earlier project that was met with less than unanimous acclaim. Last year he collaborated with dancer/choreographer Kate Wallich on The Sun Still Burns Here, in which he performed as both dancer and musician. The New York Times was sniffy, comparing it to “putting on a show in the basement with mom’s old sheets” and calling it “too hokey for transcendence”. And yet the physical explorations of that experiment have not only informed the videos he’s made for this album so far, but have clearly opened something up in his songwriting as well. In the synthesiser-driven drama of ‘Your Body Changes Everything’ (as he sings ‘Give me your weight, I'm solid/Hold me up, I'm falling down…’) he might be literally describing a dance. In ‘On The Floor’ the music simply sets up such a deeply satisfying groove, it is as though a dancefloor had willed it into existence; a perfect bubbling piece of 80s dance pop, and again Hadreas could have made a whole album like this, had he been less daring. Instead, it’s just one moment in a programme as varied in its own way as Sgt. Pepper, held together by the unity of its theme. And that theme itself is a daring one: intimacy, of various kinds, and the complexity of feelings that go with it. But Perfume Genius has been working with variations of this theme for a good decade already. This beautifully composed, expertly executed album is just where it all comes together.
14:05 Live: Soaked Oats at The Others Way 2019 (43’00”)
Soaked Oats is a four-piece indie-rock band from Dunedin who have been described as 'a southern stew of Kurt Vile with a good shake of Kevin Morby and Mac De Marco'.
Soaked Oats formed in 2017 and have released several EP's of music that effortlessly alternates between moody, anthemic soundscapes and cheeky high-energy rock.
Let's visit the Mercury Theatre in Auckland, one of the many venues spread across Auckland's K-Road for 2019's The Others Way Festival.
Performing in top hats and tails for their first ever theatre show, here is Soaked Oats live.
The songs performed are: 'Houdini', 'Shuggah Doom', 'Gum-15', 'My Mud Your Shoes', 'Coming Up', 'Driftworld', 'Don't Chew', 'Apricot Jam'.
Sound production by Andre Upston for RNZ Music
14:41 The Sampler: Damir Imamović
Nick gives his verdict on a selection of story-songs with deep Balkan roots.
Singer of Tales by Damir Imamovic
I don’t know how much great music I would never have heard, had it not been for the discerning ears and sharing spirit of Joe Boyd.
For those unfamiliar with the name, Boyd is a record producer, American but a long-time British resident, and the list of artists he’s brought to public attention is almost ridiculous, starting in the 60s with Pink Floyd and Nick Drake, all the way up to this.
Damir Imamovic is a Bosnian singer of a type of music known as Sevdah; a poetic narrative song tradition with roots in the Balkans that can be traced back to medieval times. But Damir latched onto this ancient and fast-fading tradition around the turn of this century, when he was just in his twenties. And along with old recordings, he made it his task to learn what he could from the scattering of Sevdah singers still alive. ‘Poljem se vija Hajdar delija’ translates as ‘Haydar the Brave’ and depicts a kind of Lone Ranger figure, riding a black stallion across the plains, ’floating like a wave’, while ‘Kafu mi draga ispeci’ (‘Make Coffee For Me, Darling‘) is a romantic love song; in fact, Damir sang it a few years ago at the wedding of Joe Boyd and Andrea Goertler, who together produced this album.
So what did they do that distinguishes this record from the ones Damir had already made in his home of Sarajevo? For one thing, Boyd and Goertler took Damir to Berlin, where they recorded with the great sound engineer Jerry Boys, who engineered the Buena Vista Social Club album.
But it is also the home of bass player Greg Cohen, well known for his work with the likes of Tom Waits, and the addition of this American jazz player to Damir’s already vibrant Balkan rhythms creates an extra dynamic.
But the other two musicians come from diverse backgrounds as well. Violinist Ivana Ðurić, like Damir, hails from Sarajevo, but with a training in classical rather than folk music, while the kemenche, that distinctly Mediterranean bowed sound, is played by Derya Türkan, a master musician from Istanbul. Oil and water it isn’t: more like a controlled palette of colours, each bringing the others to life. The arrangements are varied too, and a song like ‘Puhni Tihi Vjetre’ (‘Oh the Softest Wind’) is appropriately performed as a breath-like duet with just Damir’s voice and Greg Cohen’s bass.
As I say, I doubt I’d ever have heard any of it if Joe Boyd hadn’t fallen in love with this music and pushed it out into the world, which along with ‘River Man’ and ’Arnold Layne’ is just one more thing I have to thank him for.
14:49 NZ Music Month: Fresh Kiwi Covers
We’re celebrating 20 years of New Zealand Music Month with some brand new covers of classic Kiwi songs. This week it's Auckland singer-songwriter (and ex-Goodshirt member) songwriter Gareth Thomas with his cover of Voom's 'Beautiful Day'.
Auckland singer-songwriter and producer Gareth Thomas, formerly of Goodshirt (he wrote their #1 single ‘Sophie') spent his lockdown finishing up his third solo album.
The first single from the record is due for release in August, with much more to come next summer.
Gareth chose to cover ‘Beautiful Day’ by Voom, aka Buzz Moller, “because I think Buzz is one of the best songwriters in the country and I reckon way more people should know about Voom. This was an opportunity to share one of his wonderful songs.”
Gareth and Buzz have been collaborating recently, writing songs for both Gareth’s new album and his partner’s - none other than Ameila Murray aka Fazerdaze.
15:17 Paul McKessar on managing Benee (4’58”)
As part of the NZ Music Month Summit Charlotte spoke with Paul McKessar about managing new global superstar Benee, and the impact the app Tik Tok is having on the music industry.
Auckland pop sensation Benee - aka Stella Bennett - has gone viral on video-sharing platform TikTok twice, but manager Paul McKessar says her success is based on an 'old-fashioned hit record'.
In 2019, a New Zealand TikToker performed a dance with two friends to Benee's 'Glitter', which spread around the world as others took up the dance challenge.
Now Benee's gone viral on the platform again, with her recent track 'Supalonely'.
Her manager Paul McKessar described its spread as an "entirely organic and viral sensation" - but while songs often take off on the platform, it doesn't always lead to commercial success.
In the case of 'Supalonely', it did.
"Record company people in America have access to data that other folks don't see and what they could see was that 'Supalonely' was not only getting a lot of videos created, but there was this incredible correlation between the TikTok videos being created and people listening on Spotify" he said.
There were also some big names posting 'Supalonely' videos including Jennifer Lopez, "supermodel people and the biggest woman on Tiktok doing the dance".
However, artists don't tend to money from TikTok, as the platform doesn't pay for the master rights.
"The record company can only look at it as a promotional platform that they just kind of have to roll with. It made some big successes last year and it started a big success for us, but it's not a guaranteed platform for things to transition from.
"A lot of TikTok hits exist pretty much purely on TikTok."
Paul described what happened on TikTok as "a big fire for us".
"TikTok's either going to be the entirety of what happens for your song, or you look at it as a fire-starter for your song," he said.
And it certainly was a firestarter for Benee - while 'Supalonely' had begun as a viral TikTok hit, it had grown to become a massive hit record around the world.
"The Tiktok stuff is kind of back in the past for us, because we didn't really do anything for Tiktok. But now Stella's doing interviews from Indonesia to Ireland every night, she's up at 1am in the morning doing Canadian breakfast TV and stuff," Paul said.
"It's kind of turned into a real old-fashioned hit record."
15:33 Introducing: Amamelia (6’20”)
Auckland producer Amelia Berry introduces her new song 'Sad and Lonely'.
15:40 NZ Music Month: Fresh Music Daily
We're celebrating NZ Music Month with Fresh Music Daily - new music from a different Kiwi artist every day. Today it's Wellington indie-pop musician Jack Panther with his track 'This Dream'.
Jack Panther is an Auckland-born, Wellington-based indie-pop musician, who blends pop music with melancholy.
2020 will see the release of Jack’s debut EP, a collaboration with UK producer Ian Barter who’s worked with artists including Amy Winehouse and Paloma Faith.
Jack often experiences vivid and complex dreams, and his new EP is inspired by one particular dream about his future with an ex-partner.
The pair had an intense summer romance, then had to make the tough call on whether to continue long distance.
“I was in a passionate relationship that turned toxic,” Jack says, “I wrote about every intense moment of the relationship and ended up narrating its demise”.
The EP tells the story of summer love, long distance and heartbreak. Jack’s writing intertwines personal experiences with relatable feelings which showcase a vulnerable, brooding pop-side.
‘This Dream’ is Jack’s debut single. He recorded this special live version during lockdown with the help of filmmaker Bill Bycroft, who shot and edited it.
16:00 The Mixtape: Simon Grigg (originally broadcast in 2018)
NZ music industry stalwart Simon Grigg talks us through six of his favourite songs, and the people who helped shape his illustrious career for the RNZ Music Mixtape.
Simon Grigg’s career in the New Zealand music industry is more long and winding than most, and as such is hard to summarise.
He’s possibly best known as one third of the trio who gave the world OMC’s 'How Bizarre', via his label Huh! But equally noteworthy is his pioneering contribution to dance culture, thanks to his clubs The Asylum and Box, his long-running radio show BPM, and record store of the same name.
Prior to that he helped usher in punk to the country by founding The Suburban Reptiles, and provided a home for Blam Blam Blam and The Screaming Meemees on his first label Propeller.
More recently, Grigg was the founder of Audioculture – the noisy library of New Zealand music, and now resides in Thailand, working on a follow up to his first book How Bizarre, which told the story behind the iconic album.
For The Mixtape we asked Simon to choose six songs that helped define his musical life. He went one better, accompanying each song with a person from the time he deemed equally important.
First, a clarification from Simon: “Important musically. A lot of people have been important in my life that had nothing to do with the music. My wife and mother have been hugely important in who I am. But I thought I’d sit down and mark off some of the people who made a difference to me musically. I realised there are no women in there but then I realised the women sit on a higher plane.”
The person: Phil Warren (promoter, venue owner, ‘The King of Clubland’)
The song: Split Enz ‘Titus’
Phil was perhaps the greatest showman New Zealand’s ever seen.
When I was about fourteen, my mother said to me ‘what do you want to do’ and I said ‘I want to be a record producer’. I didn’t really know what that was, but I knew it had something to do with making music.
Mum rang up Phil Warren, who was the impresario around town. He gave the world Johnny Devlin, probably still the biggest pop phenomenon New Zealand’s ever had.
So I went and saw Phil and said ‘I want to be in the music business’. His office was in Mayoral Drive. It was garish, shall we say. He had purple and orange vinyl sofas, and pictures of him with Shirley Bassey and others all over the walls.
He started giving me advice, some of it pretty generic, you know, stand on your own two feet, stick to what you believe.
And a whole lot of things about the media too, like ‘you control the media. You make up the stories and they’ll print them.’
In the early eighties I started bumping into Phil, and we became very close friends, up until the day he died in 2002.
One of the ways Phil was known to New Zealand was as a judge on [TV talent show] New Faces, and one of the bands that came out of that show was Split Enz. Phil was very conservative at times, and he got it wrong with a few people. But he got it right with Split Enz.
The person: Henry King (founder: Sounds record store chain)
The song: Allen Toussaint ‘Cruel Way To Go Down’
Henry King at Sounds UnlimitedHenry King at Sounds Unlimited Photo: supplied
I first met Henry when I’d just left school. I was working in a freezing works, and I’d drive home through Panmure. There was a tiny little record shop there called Sounds Unlimited.
Henry was behind the counter and I’d go in and chat to him a little bit.
Henry was not a person who had a great deal of musical taste, but he loved selling music. And he would say to me ‘I’ve been told this record is really good. Take it away and tell me why it’s good.’
Henry eventually opened a chain of stores, and Sounds Unlimited eventually became just Sounds.
In the early eighties I’d started my first record label [Propeller], and I had no money, because you don’t make money selling independent music.
Henry offered me a part time job. He said ‘I don’t actually need any staff right now, but I want to support what you’re doing.’ He was a wonderful man.
He was an extraordinary businessman. He was the first to do that thing where you have cheap records out the front to bring you into the shop.
A few of the records Henry asked me to listen to are ones I still play today, including ‘Cruel Way To Go Down’.
Allen Toussaint was one of the great songwriters of that era. ‘Legendary’ is an understatement.
The person: David Blyth (filmmaker)
The song: Suburban Reptiles ‘Saturday Night Stay At Home’
David and I are lifelong friends.
We met at Auckland Grammar school. We were the new boys in the seventh form. We sat at the back of class together.
David said to me ‘I want to be a filmmaker’, and I said ‘well I’ve got lots of records’. And we hit it off.
In about 1976 a few of us at Auckland University were talking about forming a jazz band. I was going to be the manager. Then one day David Blyth was around at my house, and he said to me ‘there’s this new thing happening in England called punk.’
I said ‘I should form a punk band’ and he said ‘yeah forget jazz’.
I said to my friend Jimmy ‘right, we’re going to form a punk band’. He said fine. His flatmate said he’d play bass, and his girlfriend said she’d be the singer.
We formed a band called The Suburban Reptiles.
It changed everything for me.
I started taking Phil Warren’s advice and inviting the media along to gigs and seeing how far we could push them. ‘What can we say now that they’re going to print?’
We quickly figured out they’d print anything. We’d say ‘we’re all sniffing cleaning fluid which was sent to us by The Ramones’. We didn’t know The Ramones! But it’d be a headline in the paper in the weekend.
So David Blyth and I put on a show at Auckland University in 1977.
It was the first public punk gig in New Zealand. It was The Suburban Reptiles, The Scavengers, and the Masochists. David used it to raise money for his first full length film called Angel Mine.
Then he heavily featured The Suburban Reptiles ‘Saturday Night Stay At Home’ in the movie.
The person: Murray Cammick (Rip It Up magazine founder, Southside & Wildside label head)
The song: Luther Vandross ‘She Loves Me Back’
Murray is another lifelong friend. He’d founded Rip It Up and I got to know him when we were going in there and trying to hustle for a bit of space in the magazine.
By 1980 we were flatmates.
We were working in the same industry, and he was heavily involved in the music I was making – giving me advice and that sort of stuff.
Murray knew the New Zealand scene was about to explode, I think. There was so much music that was being made. Independent labels were being set up all over the place. There were bands and venues everywhere.
Murray fed into that, but he also fed it.
RipItUp magazine was so important. One of the reasons why we have a music industry in this country now is because Murray Cammick existed.
My record label [Propeller] would not have survived without Murray going out there and saying ‘This is important stuff, people. Buy these records.’
And it wasn’t just me he was doing it for; he was doing for a new label called Flying Nun as well. They came along about a year after we started.
Murray Cammick also started playing me a lot of black music. He’s a funky man. He was fanatical about Otis Redding and The Four Tops and that sort of stuff.
He started playing all this deep funk, and soul, and RnB, and people like Luther Vandross.
Dave Dobbyn was listening to this sort of music as well, and DD Smash did a cover of this song. I could have chosen about twenty Luther Vandross tracks, but that’s why I chose this one.
The person: Jerry Wise (Festival Records Managing Director)
The song: Blam Blam Blam – ‘Don’t Fight It Marsha, It’s Bigger Than Both Of Us’
Around 1981 Festival was the big indie label. It was owned by Rupert Murdoch of all people, but he was very hands off.
I was distributing [Propellor] records myself, going around from shop to shop. It was hard work. Festival offered me a distribution deal. I immediately got flak from some off the bands – ‘you’ve sold out!’
But you know, I could get my records into shops all over the country really easily.
Jerry was incredibly supportive. The industry at that level is so hand-to-mouth. It was a battle.
But he was always there with his company chequebook, saying ‘we’ll back you, this is important what you’re doing’.
He did it for Flying Nun too when they moved to Festival. He did it for Murray Cammick’s labels [Wildside and Southside] later on.
He was doing this right through into the 1990s.
It was very supportive, which you kind of needed in a country this size. There were no grants, or NZ On Air or anything like that, so Jerry was the guy who was there to say ‘we can make a video for this record, don’t worry about it’.
Jerry unfortunately died in an accident in the 1990s. He was a very important man who had made sure that we could make music.
Blam Blam Blam were one of the bands that Jerry was very staunch on. You know – ‘just keep going, these guys are important’.
‘Don’t Fight It Marsha’ was a very special Propeller record. I remember being taken into the studio by the Blams, and they said ‘we’ve got this song we’ve just written; we think it could be a single’.
It was just a very magical song.
The person: Alan Jansson (NZ super-producer & hitmaker)
The song: OMC ‘Land Of Plenty’
Alan and I go back to around 1981. He was in one of the first Wellington punk bands called The Steroids.
When they broke up Allen formed a new band, The Body Electric. They were one of the first synth bands in New Zealand. I helped them get a gig in Auckland and it was the first time that kind of music had been played in a club in New Zealand. It was quite an important moment.
Alan and I were working together all through the eighties. Then he got involved in the whole South Auckland movement. Pacific music and hip hop had started to explode down there.
Alan made a compilation of new South Auckland hip hop acts called Proud. It was massively important.
It had Otara Millionaires Club, whose song featured a young Pauly Fuemana as the rapper on it. His brother Phillip was the mentor of the whole thing.
I’d set up the Huh! Label to release an album by Nathan Haines. And I said to Alan ‘what are you doing next?’
He called me up a few weeks later and said ‘well I’ve got this guy Pauly Fuemana and we’ve formed a band called OMC.
I knew Pauly quite well, because he used to come to my clubs [Cause Celebre and Box] all the time.
Alan said ‘we’ve got a rough mix of this song. Come in.’ The song was an early mix of 'How Bizarre'.
So we signed Pauly and went off and made a record.
See it all ties together, and all these names go all the way through.
Pauly’s father was from Niue, and he used to say ‘we came to this land of plenty, what a wonderful country, we love this place. And so Pauly and Alan wrote a song around that, which is 'Land Of Plenty'.
I think it’s one of the most moving tracks I’ve ever released or been involved with.
Songs played on today's show:
12-1 p.m.
Solephonic - Jazzybiz
Khurangbin - So We Won't Forget
Peggy Lee - Is That All There Is?
Finn Andrews - Wide Winged Bird
Lemon Jelly - The Staunton Lick
Alchemy - I Hope I Never
Dixon Nacey - Taupo
Michał Martyniuk - Jazz Dance
Callum Allardice - Phobos & Deimos
Jake Baxendale - Tui
Myele Manzanza - Mortality
Elmore James - Shake Your Moneymaker
Shabaka and the Ancestors - Coming of the Strange Ones, We Will Work On Redefining Manhood, You’ve Been Called, Behold the Deceivers, Run The Darkness Will Pass
Bob Dylan - False Prophet
1-2 p.m.
The Māori Volcanics - Tokyo Twilight
King Kapisi - Sub Cranium Feeling
SPELLSPELLSPELL Spell Spell Spell feat Troy Kingi - Break my Heart (Dua Lipa cover)
Emma Paki - System Virtue
Alison Mosshart - Rise
Doprah - San Pedro
Ryan Fisherman - The Price, How Cool, Piece of Mind, Down
The Strokes - Selfless
Perfume Genius - Nothing At All, Jason, Whole Life, Describe, Your Body Changes Everything, On The Floor, Without You
The Relaxomatic Project - Everyday There Is Something
2-3 p.m.
Phelps and Munro - Horse Winning Without Rider
Soaked Oats - Houdini, Shuggah Doom, Gum-15, My Mud Your Shoes, Coming Up, Driftworld, Don't Chew, Apricot Jam (live @ Mercury Theater)
Melowdownz - Fine
Arrested Development - People Everyday
Damir Imamović - Poljem se vija Hajdar delija, Kafu mi draga ispeci, O, bosanske gore snježne, Puhni Tihi Vjetre, Since Tone
Gareth Thomas - Beautiful Day (Voom Cover)
Princess Chelsea - Cigarette Duet
Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
High Dependency Unit - Lull
3-4 p.m.
Sola Rosa - Ready Now
Sunshine Sound System - As of Lately
SJD - From A To Be Or Not To Be
Jawsh 685 - Laxed (Siren Beat)
Benee - Supalonely
Prince Buster - Madness
LEAO - Pua Maliu
James Blake - You’re Too Precious
Amamelia - Sad and Lonely
Jack Panther - This Dream
Gorillaz - Aries (feat Peter Hook & Georgia)
Har Mar Superstar - Don't You Go Forgetting About Me Now
The White Stripes - My Doorbell
4-5 p.m.
Split Enz - Titus
Allen Toussaint - Cruel Way To Go Down
Suburban Reptiles - Saturday Night Stay At Home
Luther Vandross - She Loves Me Back
Blam Blam Blam – Don’t Fight It Marsha, It’s Bigger Than Both Of Us
OMC - Land Of Plenty
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/music101/20200523